STAND. COM. REP. NO. 303

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 198

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 198 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CRIME REDUCTION,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

     (1)  Establish a permanent weed and seed strategy within the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations; and

     (2)  Appropriate funds to maintain and expand the weed and seed strategy; provided that any appropriation is conditioned on obtaining federal funding.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, Weed and Seed Hawaii, and eleven individuals.

     Your Committees find that the weed and seed strategy is a collaborative effort among law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and county levels, social service agencies, private businesses, nonprofit organizations, and residents to reclaim, restore, and rebuild communities.  Through weed and seed activities, law enforcement officers and residents have become partners in working together to keep communities clean and safe.  Implementation of this measure will provide the State with an innovative and comprehensive approach to law enforcement and community revitalization.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Eliminating the provision that any appropriation is conditioned on obtaining federal funding; and

     (2)  Making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 198, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 198, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Judiciary and Labor,

________________________________ GILBERT S.C. KEITH-AGARAN, Chair

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair