STAND. COM. REP. NO. 871

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 207

       S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2017

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 207, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EMPLOYEES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to amend the laws relating to public employment leave policies. 

     Specifically, the measure: 

     (1)  Establishes a shared leave program within the Department of Human Resources Development to allow state employees to donate accumulated sick leave and vacation leave credits to a shared leave bank or directly to another state employee who has a serious personal illness or injury or who has a family member who has a serious personal illness or injury; and

     (2)  Allows an employee's designation of beneficiary form to be filed with the department where the employee was employed and permits the designation to be made through a statement that is not verified or written if any employee dies with accumulated leave.

     Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from the Hawaii Government Employees Association and one individual.  Your Committee received written comments in support of part II of this measure from the Department of Accounting and General Services.

     Your Committee received written comments in opposition to this measure from the Department of Human Resources Development.

     Your Committee received written comments on part I of this measure from one individual.

     Your Committee finds that although the Hawaii Revised Statutes currently authorize state departments to establish shared leave programs, they are not required to do so, and that existing shared leave programs do not allow a state employee to receive donated leave from fellow state employees who are employed by a different state department or agency.

     Your Committee believes that each executive department, the Judiciary, and the Legislature should be required to establish a shared leave program and that a state employee should not be precluded from sharing leave with an employee of a state department or agency other than the one in which the sharing employee is employed.  The chief executive of a county should also be authorized, but not required, to establish a leave sharing program for employees of that county.

Your Committee also believes that it is better to address these issues by amending existing provisions of the Hawaii Revised Statutes than by creating an entirely new statutory section.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

     (1)  Deleting the language of part I, which created a new statutory section to establish a leave sharing program within the Department of Human Resources Development; and

     (2)  Replacing the new section in part I with provisions that amend section 78-26, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to:

          (A)  Require each state government branch to establish a shared leave program;

          (B)  Authorize the chief executive of a county to establish a shared leave program for county employees; and

          (C)  Preclude a state government branch from prohibiting leave sharing between different departments or bargaining units because of administrative infeasibility.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 207, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 207, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

________________________________

JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair