Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Education and Military Affairs and Higher Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 2980 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to increase the number of public high schools participating in the Construction Academy training program, to allow high school students to take classes in various construction trades and earn credit towards an associate degree at an affiliated community college.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the University of Hawaii, the Department of Education, the Construction Academy, and Hawaii Business Roundtable.

Your Committees find that the State of Hawaii is currently experiencing an estimated $10,000,000,000 boom in new construction that has created a critical shortage of qualified workers in the trades. Over the next several years, projections show that Hawaii will need between 10,000 and 26,000 more construction workers to meet industry demand. Moreover, some believe the labor shortage will only become more severe nationwide as the need for skilled workers increases on the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast and in regions with housing booms. Officials at organizations representing the construction trades note that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the industry will need to add 100,000 jobs each year through 2012, while also filling an additional 90,000 openings vacated largely by retiring baby boomers.

Honolulu Community College and the Department of Education launched the Construction Academy in the fall of 2005 in partnership with eight Hawaii public high schools: Kailua, Radford, Waipahu, Mililani, Kahuku, McKinley, Pearl City, and Waialua. The program allows high school students to take classes in various construction trades at their respective high schools, and at the same time to earn credits towards an associate degree at an affiliated community college.

The first graduating class in 2005 generated such excitement and promise on the high school campuses that the Construction Academy organizers hope to expand the program to include other public high schools and community colleges, particularly on the neighbor islands. The purpose of the Construction Academy is to develop interest in the industry and to build a foundation of general construction skills that prepares students for more in-depth professional trades training.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Military Affairs and Higher Education that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2980, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2980, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.