STAND. COM. REP. NO. 524

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 80

       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 Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 80 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EDUCATION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to establish a revolving fund for the collection of moneys received as repayments due to the breaches of contractual agreements between the Department of Education and students who received moneys pursuant to the Felix Consent Decree recruitment and retention program.

     Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Department of Education and the University of Hawaii.  Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Budget and Finance.

     Your Committee finds that during the 1999-2000 academic school year, a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) was executed between the Department of Education (DOE) and the University of Hawaii, as a result of the Felix Consent Decree.  The MOA authorized the provision of tuition assistance or stipends to qualified students in pursuit of bachelor degrees in education or master's degrees in special education.  Stipends were predicated on a recipient's employment with the DOE as a special education teacher for three years, for a bachelor's degree student, and five years, for a master's degree student.  Your Committee further finds that if a recipient fails to fulfill the teaching requirement for the specified durations, the recipient must repay a prorated amount of the tuition assistance received.

     Your Committee determines that a revolving fund should be established to collect the repayment moneys and that such funds should be used to address the current shortage of qualified special education teachers in the State.  Your Committee believes that this objective is best accomplished by specifying that the funds shall be used for the provision of tuition assistance or stipends to other students under the DOE's Felix Consent Decree recruitment and retention program.

     Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by specifying that moneys in the revolving fund shall be used to provide for the funding of stipends pursuant to contractual agreements between students and the DOE under the DOE's Felix Consent Decree recruitment and retention program, or any successor programs.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 80, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 80, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Education,

____________________________

NORMAN SAKAMOTO, Chair