STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2336

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2006

RE: S.B. No. 2288

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Transportation and Government Operations and Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 2288 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO MONEYS FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to enhance natural disaster preparedness by, among other things:

(1) Creating a civil defense disaster preparedness special fund to expend moneys on constructing public shelters and furnishing early warning systems, among other things;

(2) Allowing moneys in the hurricane reserve fund to be used for the same purposes as the Hawaii hurricane relief fund;

(3) Requiring moneys in the Hawaii hurricane relief fund, prior to its dissolution, to be deposited into the civil defense disaster preparedness fund after a deposit of $2,000,000 of the annual net investment income for the current fiscal biennium is deposited into the loss mitigation grant fund; and

(4) Repealing the appropriations under Act 5, Special Session Laws of Hawaii 2005, of $2,000,000 for FY 2006-2007 from the hurricane reserve trust fund for tsunami and hurricane preparedness efforts, and the appropriation of $2,000,000 for FY 2006-2007 for deposit into the loss mitigation grant fund.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, Department of Accounting and General Services, State Civil Defense, Structural Engineers Association of Hawaii, Hawaii Association of Realtors, Hawaii Lumber Products Association, and one individual.

Your Committees find that funding for disaster preparedness requires a dedicated source of funding, rather than constant general appropriation funding. The Hawaii hurricane reserve trust fund is an ideal source of funding for disaster preparedness.

This measure also creates a civil defense disaster preparedness special fund to be used by the State Department of Defense to construct, improve, and retrofit buildings that can serve as public shelters, purchase or improve early warning systems, conduct public education programs on disaster preparedness, promote loss mitigation efforts, provide around the clock alert staff, update evacuation maps in phone books, develop statewide residential safe room design standards, fund major disaster and emergency response programs, establish and maintain emergency supplies, and improve disaster readiness.

Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for clarity and style.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Transportation and Government Operations and Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Housing that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2288, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2288, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Transportation and Government Operations and Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Housing,

____________________________

RON MENOR, Chair

____________________________

LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair