STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2409

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2603

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2018

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 2603 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Require any report of a study or an audit enacted with a legislative appropriation and conducted by an executive department or agency, including the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation, and by the Legislative Reference Bureau, Auditor, Judiciary, or Office of Hawaiian Affairs, to be submitted to the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, chairs of the appropriate subject matter committee of each house, and the Legislative Reference Bureau library; and

(2) Require a public hearing or informational briefing within one year of receipt of report, except if an extension is granted or the requirement is waived by the Senate President or Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from Common Cause Hawaii. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Budget and Finance and Office of the Auditor.

Your Committee finds that every year laws and resolutions are enacted that require new studies and audits of various state government departments or agencies. Despite the expenditure of valuable time and resources by various departments and agencies to conduct and complete these studies and audits the resultant report is often not widely reviewed by the Legislature or public and can sometimes go completely unnoticed despite the fact that these reports can contain valuable information. Therefore, your Committee finds that mandating a public hearing or informational briefing which would facilitate discussion and analysis of the report findings and recommendations would better serve the public interest and satisfy legislative intent. However, your Committee recognizes that for certain types of audits, specifically financial and regularly occurring audits, there is already sufficient action being taken to keep members of the Legislature sufficiently informed.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Adding language to require report of a study or an audit adopted by concurrent resolution to be submitted to the Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, chairs of the appropriate subject matter committee of each house, and the Legislative Reference Bureau library; and

(2) Exempting financial and other regularly occurring audits from the proposed submission requirements.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Government Operations that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2603, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2603, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Government Operations,

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DONNA MERCADO KIM, Chair