STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1158-18

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2018

RE: S.B. No. 3028

S.D. 1

H.D. 1

Honorable Scott K. Saiki

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2018

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health & Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 3028, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO CHILD SUPPORT,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require that certain amounts of child support moneys that are collected by the Department of Human Services for public assistance of a child or children be passed through to the family receiving the public assistance. Additionally, this measure requires the Department of Human Services to disregard passed through child support payments when determining the needs of an applicant for or recipient of public assistance.

The Hawai‘i State Commission on the Status of Women, Women's Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice (Hawaii Appleseed), Domestic Violence Action Center, Hawaii Children's Action Network, Oahu County Committee on Legislative Priorities of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, and a few individuals submitted testimony in support of this measure. The Department of Human Services and Department of the Attorney General provided comments.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Clarifying that the Child Support Enforcement Agency is responsible for passing through a portion of the child support collected to eligible families;

(2) Setting the amount of child support that shall pass through to families receiving public assistance as up to the first $100 in child support collected in that month for families with one child and up to the first $200 in child support collected in that month for families with more than one child;

(3) Adding language from S.B. No. 2746 S.D. 1 to this measure to assist in the enforcement of child support payments by authorizing the imposition of a fine not to exceed $1,000 when an employer:

(A) Fails to comply with an order to assign future income to pay child support or an income withholding notice or order to pay child support; and

(B) Refuses to hire a prospective employee or takes disciplinary action against an employee based upon an order or notice to withhold child support; and

(4) Changing the effective date to July 1, 3000, to encourage further discussion.

Your Committee notes that the Department of the Attorney General expressed concerns regarding the cost of this measure from both computer system changes and changes in federal funding. The Department of the Attorney General estimated that changing the computer systems for the Child Support Enforcement Agency will cost approximately $400,000. While the Department of the Attorney General did not estimate the cost incurred from changes to federal funding, Hawaii Appleseed estimated that if this measure was enacted into law in 2016, it would have cost the State $675,000 to provide just over $1,500,000 in benefits to approximately 800 families.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health & Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3028, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3028, S.D. 1, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health & Human Services,

____________________________

JOHN M. MIZUNO, Chair