STAND. COM. REP. NO. 516

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 1106

       S.D. 2

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection, to which was referred S.B. No. 1106, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EXEMPTIONS FROM CHILD CARE LICENSING,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to allow a child care program licensed by the United States Department of Defense or the Hawaii Council of Private Schools to be exempt from licensing by the Department of Human Services; provided that the child care program licensed by the Hawaii Council of Private Schools must apply and show evidence that the licensing standards of the Council meet or exceed the licensing standards of the Department of Human Services for a comparable program, including a monitoring component.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services and Hawaii Association of Independent Schools.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Hawaii Association for the Education of Young Children.

     Your Committee finds that certain child care programs to be exempted under this measure are already licensed or certified by the United States Department of Defense, whose standards exceed the standards of the Department of Human Services.

For those child care programs licensed by the Hawaii Council of Private Schools, your Committee finds that this measure provides adequate protections to ensure that these child care programs meet or exceed the licensing standards of the Department of Human Services.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by inserting an effective date of July 1, 2013.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1106, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1106, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection,

____________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair