STAND. COM. REP. NO. 406

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2025

RE: H.B. No. 842

H.D. 1

Honorable Nadine K. Nakamura

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Madame:

Your Committee on Higher Education, to which was referred H.B. No. 842 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO MENTAL HEALTH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to the University of Hawaii at Manoa to establish three additional permanent mental health practitioner positions within the Division of Student Success' Counseling and Student Development Center.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa; Academic Labor United; and one individual.

Your Committee finds that the Counseling and Student Development Center at the University of Hawaii at Manoa is a critical resource providing mental health support to its students. However, the Center's staffing levels remain critically low. This measure will provide funding for additional full-time, permanent mental health professionals to meet the mental health needs of university students.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Changing the number of positions to be funded to an unspecified number; and

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

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Higher Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 842, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 842, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Higher Education,

____________________________

ANDREW TAKUYA GARRETT, Chair