Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

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. 2343 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to authorize criminal background checks, in the form of positive fingerprint identification, for persons providing care or having access to the elderly and disabled.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Human Services, the State Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Policy Advisory Board for Elder Affairs, the Kokua Council, the Hawaii Coalition of Care Home Administrators, and the Healthcare Association of Hawaii.

Your Committees recognize that the elderly and disabled are especially vulnerable classes of people that need protection in order to live in a safe and secure environment. Many of the service providers that they come into contact with on a daily basis are complete strangers. In order to reduce the incidents of abuse of the elderly and disabled, your Committees find that criminal background checks of all caregivers and service providers that come into contact with elderly or disabled individuals should be mandatory.

Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and style.

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. 2343, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2343, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.