STAND. COM. REP. NO. 656

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 46

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2007

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 46 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure as received is to make technical revisions to law pertaining to public employees. 

     Your Committee received no testimony on this measure.

     Your Committee previously heard S.B. No. 684, A Bill for an Act Relating to Uniform Information Practices, which proposed an amendment to the Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified), chapter 92F, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS), to require public disclosure of proposed compensation or compensation changes for administrative positions in the University of Hawaii System.  At the hearing on S.B. No. 684, your Committee received testimony in support from the University of Hawaii Professional Assembly.  The University of Hawaii opposed the measure.  The Office of Information Practices offered comment.

     The Office of Information Practices testified that a requirement to disclose information at a public meeting would more appropriately be placed in chapter 92, HRS, governing public meetings, or the substantive law governing the public agency, rather than the in chapter 92F, HRS, which pertains to records.  Because the title of S.B. No. 864 would not encompass that revision, it was announced during decision-making on S.B. No. 864, that S.B. No. 46 would be amended to include the intended revisions in appropriate statutory sections.

Your Committee finds that certain employees of the University of Hawaii are the highest paid public employees in the State of Hawaii, and that meaningful public comment on the salaries and salary increases for excluded managerial and executive administrators in the University of Hawaii System is a matter of intense public interest and statewide concern.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended S.B. No. 46 by:

(1)  Deleting the amendment to section 76-11, HRS; and

(2)  Amending sections 89C-4, 92-5(a), 304A-1001, and 304A-1004, HRS, to require the Board of Regents to disclose proposed compensation or change in compensation for high level administrative positions in the University of Hawaii System.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 46, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 46, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,

____________________________

CLAYTON HEE, Chair