STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2503

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 1488

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Public Safety and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 1488 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CORRECTIONAL INDUSTRIES,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to repeal the limit on the number of temporary exempt positions that the Director of Public Safety may hire for the Correctional Industries Program.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Public Safety.  Testimony in opposition was received from the Hawaii Government Employees Association.

     The Correctional Industries Program provides the maximum level of vocational rehabilitation opportunities for able-bodied inmates in correctional facilities, among other statutorily mandated programs and functions pursuant to section 354D-4, Hawaii Revised Statutes.  Inmates in the Program are considered to be in "temporary exempt positions".  This measure repeals the forty-five position limit on temporary exempt hires, thus allowing the hiring of an unlimited number of inmates.

     Your Committees have amended this measure to increase the permissible number of temporary exempt positions allowed to be hired from forty-five to sixty-five, in recognition that allowing for an unlimited number of exempt positions has the potential of circumventing civil service laws as a matter of principle.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety and Judiciary and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1488, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1488, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety and Judiciary and Labor,

____________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair