Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1223, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to provide a vehicle to increase the fee charged for dishonored or bounced checks.

Your Committee finds that each year, the cost of doing business in Hawaii, especially for small businesses, continues to rise. Dishonored checks require business owners to track-down, contact and collect the funds represented on these checks. The time spent on dishonored checks is a cost to not only business owners, but consumers as well, if that cost is passed-on to them.

This bill provides a vehicle to increase the dishonored check fee to reasonably compensate business owners for the work involved with these checks, and to hopefully provide a disincentive for persons who write checks that are insufficiently funded.

Your Committee has amended the bill by replacing the word "draw" with the word "drawee" to conform to the language of the existing section 490:3-506.5, Hawaii Revised Statutes. Your Committee has also retained the unspecified amount of the fee and the defective date for purposes of continuing discussion on this issue.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1223, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1223, S.D. 2.