Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2338 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to enable the State to provide home- and community-based services to low-income individuals with developmental disabilities or mental retardation who choose to live in their own communities instead of an institutional setting. This bill makes an emergency appropriation of $6,807,562 for the Medicaid Home and Community Based Service Waiver Program (MHCBSW) to meet an existing shortfall.

The Department of Health, State Council on Developmental Disabilities, Department of Human Services, Department of the Attorney General, and Hawaii Disability Rights Center supported this bill.

The budget shortfall is due to an increased number of clients that must be admitted to the MHCBSW program to comply with the 2005 legal settlement with the Hawaii Disability Rights Center.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2338 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Finance.