STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2426

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2080

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirtieth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2020

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 2080 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO STATE BUILDINGS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Require the Department of Accounting and General Services to purchase and install, at minimum, one emergency evacuation chair per floor, excluding the floor of exit discharge, in each state building having two or more floors;

(2) Require the Department of Accounting and General Services to maintain a list of and perform yearly inspection on emergency evacuation chairs in state buildings;

(3) Require the Disability Communication and Access Board to conduct annual training and produce written informational material regarding the appropriate use of emergency evacuation chairs;

(4) Provide a phase-in period for the installation of emergency evacuation chairs; and

(5) Appropriate funds.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of the Auditor. Your Committee received comments from the Department of Accounting and General Services and Disability and Communication Access Board.

Your Committee finds that emergency evacuation chairs improve and enhance the ability of evacuating people with mobility limitations during an emergency and can help accommodate users when an elevator is out of order. This measure would require the Department of Accounting and General Services to purchase and install at least one emergency evacuation chair in each state building that has two or more floors.

Your Committee notes, however, that the Department of Accounting and General Services (Department) is responsible for only approximately five percent of state-owned buildings and that any implementation or installation of emergency evacuation chairs in the remaining state-owned buildings would be under the authority and oversight of the agency or department operating within the respective building. Accordingly, your Committee finds that a smaller scale pilot project beginning with the buildings under the jurisdiction of the Department is a manageable task and that the Department can lend technical assistance to any other agency or department moving forward beyond the pilot project.

Therefore, your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Establishing a pilot project within the Department to purchase and install emergency evacuation chairs in state-owned buildings and facilities under its jurisdiction and management that have two or more stories;

(2) Moving the language that would have been codified in chapter 103, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to Session Law, and making conforming amendments;

(3) Clarifying that the Department shall install, at minimum, one emergency evacuation chair at or near one stairwell on each floor, except the floor of exit discharge, of every state building under its control having two or more floors, unless the two-story building has an exit to an outside ground level from a second floor;

(4) Clarifying that no less than fifty percent of the emergency evacuation chairs shall be installed by June 30, 2022 and that one hundred percent of the emergency evacuation chairs shall be installed by June 30, 2024; and

(5) Requiring the Department to submit a report of its progress concerning the pilot project to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular session of 2022.

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. 2080, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2080, 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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LAURA H. THIELEN, Chair