STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2197

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2702

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2010

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2702 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO A MAJOR DISASTER TRUST ACCOUNT,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to allow federal reimbursement moneys for disaster relief to be deposited into a trust account for disaster relief.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the one government entity.  Written testimony presented to the Committee may be reviewed on the Legislature's website.

     Current law in section 37-41, Hawaii Revised Statutes, requires that unexpended appropriations be returned to the general fund.  The State Department of Defense pays disaster relief expenses out of operating funds to be later reimbursed from federal funds which would lapse into the general fund.  The intent of this measure is to allow federal reimbursements to be held in a trust account to ensure that these funds do not lapse at the end of the fiscal year.  This measure would preserve federal funds in a trust account to be available for expenditure on disaster relief.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by explicitly stating that federal reimbursement funds in the trust account for disaster relief shall not lapse into the general fund, and making technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2702, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2702, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety and Military Affairs,

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair