STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2116

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2734

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 Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2734 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EMPLOYEE'S DESIGNATION OF BENEFICIARY FORM,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to allow the employee's designation of beneficiary form to be kept in the department where the employee is employed and permit the designation to be filed and maintained electronically.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Accounting and General Services.

Your Committee finds that currently, section 78-23(c), Hawaii Revised Statutes, requires the employee's designation of beneficiary form to be written, notarized, and filed with the comptroller or another disbursing officer who issues warrants or checks to pay an employee for the employee's services. This requirement has resulted in thousands of forms being maintained in a central location at the Department of Accounting and General Services. Maintaining the forms, which includes manually filing forms alphabetically for new employees, filing updated forms for current employees, and purging forms of employees no longer employed with the State, is extremely labor intensive. Keeping the forms within the employing department ensures that the form, along with other payroll and personnel forms, would routinely be discarded when no longer required. Your Committee further finds that the State is in the process of implementing a new payroll system that may be able to maintain beneficiary information entered by the employee. Accordingly, this measure amends statute to eliminate the requirement that the form be written and notarized, which will allow the new system to maintain the most current beneficiary information in an electronic format.

Your Committee has amended this measure by inserting an effective date of January 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2734, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2734, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Labor,

________________________________

JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair