STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3102

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 2008

       H.D. 2

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Judiciary and Labor and Government Operations, to which was referred H.B. No. 2008, H.D. 2, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to prohibit the State from hiring any person for more than two terms of eighty-nine consecutive days during that person's lifetime in a position that is wholly funded by general funds, with limited exceptions.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Budget and Finance and Hawaii Government Employees Association, AFSCME Local 152, AFL-CIO.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Department of Accounting and General Services; Department of Agriculture; Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism; Department of Education; Department of Health; Department of Hawaiian Home Lands; Department of Land and Natural Resources; Office of Enterprise Technology Services; Department of Public Safety; Hawaii State Ethics Commission; Hawaii Health Systems Corporation; Department of the Attorney General; and one individual.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Human Resources Development and University of Hawai‘i System.

     Your Committees find that state departments often use eighty-nine day term hires to fill positions and that several state departments have extended the terms of eighty-nine day term hires multiple times.  As a result, these employees are denied collective bargaining rights and benefits.  Implementation of this measure will provide better assurance that employees of the State receive the appropriate benefits.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Specifying that the State is prohibited from temporarily hiring or contracting the services of any person pursuant to section 76-77(8), Hawaii Revised Statutes, for more than an unspecified number of terms of ninety consecutive days, rather than two eighty-nine consecutive day terms;

     (2)  Deleting language restricting the limit to the lifetime of the person;

     (3)  Deleting the exemption to the limit of ninety-day consecutive terms for bona fide employees held over after retirement for training purposes with a training plan that is filed with the Department of Human Resources Development; and

     (4)  Inserting an effective date of January 7, 2059.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Judiciary and Labor and Government Operations that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2008, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2008, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Judiciary and Labor and Government Operations,

________________________________ DONNA MERCADO KIM, Chair

________________________________ GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair