STAND. COM. REP. NO. 23

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 173

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 Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 173 entitled:

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

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Require the Judiciary to establish a three-year pilot program to provide free child care services to minor children of parties and witnesses who are attending court hearings in the first circuit;

(2) Require the Judiciary to submit reports to the Legislature; and

(3) Appropriate funds.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services, Office of the Public Defender, Hawaiʻi State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Child and Family Service, and four individuals.

Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Judiciary.

Your Committee finds that parents and caregivers living in poverty often do not have access to appropriate child care when they are ordered to appear in court for a proceeding, which may include civil restraining order proceedings, family court proceedings, criminal hearings and trials, and proof of compliance hearings. Additionally, in some cases, witnesses may fail to appear at certain mandatory court proceedings due to an inability to secure appropriate child care. Your Committee believes that parties and witnesses with limited child care options would greatly benefit from a program that allows them to attend hearings and have a safe, secure, and appropriate child care option at the courthouse. This measure will help to alleviate financial pressures that may prevent or make it extremely difficult and stressful for a parent to attend a required court proceeding.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Changing the appropriation to an unspecified amount; and

(2) Inserting an effective date of April 23, 2057, to encourage further discussion.

Your Committee notes that this measure, as amended, contains an unspecified appropriation amount. Should your Committee on Ways and Means choose to deliberate on this measure, your Committee respectfully requests that it consider inserting an appropriation amount of $400,000 for the Judiciary to establish a three-year pilot program to provide free child care services to minor children of parties and witnesses who are attending court hearings in the first circuit.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 173, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 173, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

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

________________________________

KARL RHOADS, Chair