STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2408

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2604

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. 2604 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 the Legislative Reference Bureau to develop a spreadsheet informing members of the Legislature on the status and content of all reports to be submitted to the Legislature as required by law or requested by legislative resolution; and

(2) Require the Legislative Reference Bureau to inform the Legislature of all annual and other reports required by law to be submitted to the Legislature or requested by legislative resolution that were not timely submitted.

Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Legislative Reference Bureau.

Your Committee finds that every year laws 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. One reason for this lack of follow-up is that the sheer volume of reports required each year and the number of reporting entities involved in creating those reports makes it difficult for the Legislature to effectively track and review the required reports for purposes of accountability. Therefore, your Committee finds that it is necessary to establish a streamlined system through which the Legislature can be accurately informed about which departments, agencies, and offices are and are not meeting their reporting requirements. Moreover, your Committee finds that the Legislative Reference Bureau is already tasked with creating a report outlining which bills require the submission of a report to the Legislature and also serves as a repository of such reports. Accordingly, your Committee finds that the Legislative Reference Bureau is the appropriate entity to collect and manage more detailed information relating to required reports and the submission of those reports to the Legislature each session. To assist the Legislative Reference Bureau in effectively carrying out the proposals, your Committee also finds that reporting entities should also provide a copy of any report submitted to the Legislature to the Legislative Reference Bureau. Moreover, providing a copy of the submitted report to the Legislative Reference Bureau will allow the Bureau to record the date upon which the Legislature received the report, which the Bureau can then include in the proposed spreadsheet.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Requiring the Legislative Reference Bureau to include the due date for each report in the proposed spreadsheet; and

(2) Requiring reporting entities to provide a copy of any report submitted to the Legislature to the Legislative Reference Bureau.

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. 2604, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2604, 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