STAND. COM. REP. NO. 327

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 1422

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 1422 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO NON-GENERAL FUNDS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Repeal the requirement that a portion of the fees collected for certified copies of certain certificates issued by the Department of Health be deposited to the credit of the general fund;

(2) Repeal the Birth Defects Special Fund; and

(3) Require a portion of the fees collected for marriage licenses to be deposited into the Vital Statistic Improvement Special Fund.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Health.

Your Committee finds that in the Office of the Auditor's Report No. 21-03, Review of Special Funds, Revolving Funds, Trust Funds, and Trust Accounts of the Department of Health, 2021, the Auditor found that the Birth Defects Special Fund did not meet the criteria of a special fund, in part because there was no clear link between the birth defects program and marriage license fees, and therefore recommended its repeal. Your Committee further finds that it is essential to redirect the deposits from the Birth Defects Special Fund into the Vital Statistics Special Fund to overhaul vital statistics business functions, especially as there has been lengthy backlogs in customer requests due to a decades-old, unreliable computer system that drives a sub-optimal manual workflow, as well as overall increases in customer orders. This measure provides a more reliable stream of resources to offset costs for the daily operations of the vital statistics systems and to better support modernization and automation of the system than a budget increase or appropriation would provide.

Your Committee has amended this measure by 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 Health and Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1422, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1422, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

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

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JOY A. SAN BUENAVENTURA, Chair