Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Human Services, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 205 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to clarify and declare that providers of domestic services who are authorized and subsidized by the Department of Human Services to provide domestic services are excluded from the application of the State's Workers' Compensation Law, Temporary Disability Law, and Prepaid Health Care Law.

Your Committee drafted a proposed Senate Draft on this measure that, among other things, requested that:

Your Committee finds that the Department of Human Services contracts with social care providers, including corporations and private agencies, to perform attendant care and day care services authorized under the Social Security Act, as amended.

Sections 386-1, 392-3 and 393-5, Hawaii Revised Statutes, exclude "domestic" services from the definitions of "employment" for individuals who perform attendant care and day care services authorized under the Social Security Act, as amended, in the employ of social care providers.

However, the "domestic" exemption is not included in the Hawaii Employment Security Law, chapter 383, Hawaii Revised Statutes.

Your Committee finds that it is in the public interest, benefit, and welfare to exclude from the definition of "employment" in chapters 383, 386, 392 and 393, Hawaii Revised Statutes, those individuals who perform attendant care and day care services authorized under the Social Security Act, as amended, in the employ of social care providers. This would ensure that social care providers continue to operate and use their resources to provide services to elderly and disabled adults in Hawaii.

Your Committee further finds that it is in the public interest, benefit, and welfare to have a friendly regulatory environment for businesses, including consistent employment benefit laws. Therefore, your Committee finds that it is contrary to the public interest, benefit, and welfare to have inconsistent laws that exclude the "domestic" exemption in the Hawaii Employment Security Law but include the "domestic" exemption in the Hawaii Workers' Compensation law, Temporary Disability Law, and Prepaid Health Care Law.

Your Committee also finds that it would be in the public interest if the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations and other state agencies would act consistently with the intent of the Legislature to exclude social care providers and their employees who perform social services from the definition of "employment" in chapters 383, 386, 392, and 393, Hawaii Revised Statutes.

Your Committee finds that actions not consistent with this intent may jeopardize and seriously impair the ability of social care providers to continue to operate and to use their resources to provide services to elderly and disabled adults in Hawaii.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 205, as amended herein, and recommends that it be referred to the Committee on Labor, in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 205, S.D. 1.