STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2685

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2604

S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2018

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2604, S.D. 1, 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 develop a more efficient system for the Legislature to track and review reports that the various government agencies are required or requested to submit.

More specifically, this measure requires the Legislative Reference Bureau to develop a spreadsheet tracking the status and content of all reports required or requested to be submitted to the Legislature and to inform the Legislature of any of these reports that are not timely submitted.

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

Your Committee finds that the ever-growing number of reports required to be submitted to the Legislature as required by law or requested by legislative resolution necessitates a more efficient system to track which of these reports are not being timely submitted, or are not being submitted at all. Your Committee also finds that under present circumstances, the Legislative Reference Bureau may not be able to include in the spreadsheet all of the information required in this measure as:

(1) The reports may be funded by amounts that are not always expressly identified or are sometimes funded by commingled moneys from different program IDs within an agency's operating budget; and

(2) The Bureau may be unable to ascertain the date that the Legislature received the report as neither house of the Legislature is required under law to inform the Bureau of this receipt date.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Narrowing the scope of requested reports to be included in the Legislative Reference Bureau's tracking system to those requested by legislative concurrent resolution;

(2) Requiring agencies that submit reports to conspicuously include in their reports:

(A) The law (or laws) that required or concurrent resolution that requested the report;

(B) The amount of money appropriated for the report, or for a study that was the basis for the report; and

(C) The date that the Legislature requested that the report be submitted to it for its review;

(3) Amending chapter 21, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to require the appropriate Senate and House of Representative recipient of a required or requested report to inform the Legislative Reference Bureau that it has received the required or requested report and provide the date upon which it received the report; and

(4) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

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. 2604, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2604, S.D. 2.

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

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DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair