STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2402

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2488

       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 Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs and Water and Land, to which was referred S.B. No. 2488 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO WATER SYSTEMS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to clarify that the Board of Agriculture shall pay all receipts and revenues received from the operation of an irrigation and water utilization system into the respective special accounts for that irrigation and water utilization system in the Irrigation System Revolving Fund.

     Your Committee received comments from the Department of Agriculture.

     The intent of this measure is to accurately account for the revenues received from and expended by each irrigation system special account established for an irrigation project.

     Your Committees request the Board of Agriculture to provide your Committees, no later than March 31, 2008, a report on an accounting of every "activity code" in its accounting system for moneys received and expended in the past three fiscal years on each irrigation system under the Irrigation System Revolving Fund, as provided under section 168-3, Hawaii Revised Statutes.  The report shall include, but not be limited to, the total revenues each irrigation system generates. 

     Your Committees believe this measure should proceed through the Legislative process while the Legislature awaits a forthcoming Auditor report on the Molokai Irrigation System.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs and Water and Land that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2488, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2488, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs and Water and Land,

____________________________ CLAYTON HEE, Chair

____________________________ JILL TOKUDA, Chair