STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2984

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 1780

       H.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred H.B. No. 1780, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AGENCY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to fund ten permanent full-time equivalent positions within the Child Support Enforcement Agency, which is a division of the Department of the Attorney General.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of the Attorney General.  Your Committee received testimony in opposition to this measure from one individual.

     Your Committee finds that federal regulations require that each state maintain a base level amount of expenditures for its child support program.  Accordingly, the Child Support Enforcement Agency requires a "maintenance of effort" of $5,546,266 annually to meet the minimum standards necessary to carry out its statutory duties.  If Hawaii does not meet this base amount of spending, additional federal funding is jeopardized.  However, Hawaii is dangerously close to being unable to meet these minimum standards because of continuous funding cuts to its programs.  For example, in 2012, several positions within the Child Support Enforcement Agency were abolished.  This measure reestablishes ten positions for the Child Support Enforcement Agency to more efficiently deal with increasingly complex cases and help the Agency carry out its mission and meet its minimum standards for additional federal funding.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1780, H.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,

____________________________

CLAYTON HEE, Chair