STAND. COM. REP. NO. 65

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 926

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 926 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE OFFICE OF LANGUAGE ACCESS,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to establish three positions within the Office of Language Access to assist state agencies and state-funded agencies in implementing Hawaii's language access law.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Language Access, Inter-Agency Council for Immigrant and Refugee Services, and one individual.

 

     Your Committee finds that the Office of Language Access was established to provide oversight, central coordination, and technical assistance to twenty-six state agencies and approximately one hundred fifty state-funded agencies in implementing Hawaii's language access law.  The Office of Language Access provides technical assistance to agencies in the form of needs assessments, assistance with language access plans, training of agency staff, work with interpreters and translators, and data collection and reporting.

 

     Your Committee further finds that the Office's staff was cut to a single position in 2009 due to the State's reduction in force.  Although two of the six positions were restored in 2013, critical staff positions remain unfilled.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 926 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

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

 

 

 

____________________________

JOSH GREEN, Chair