STAND. COM. REP. NO. 284-24

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2024

RE: H.B. No. 1656

H.D. 1

Honorable Scott K. Saiki

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2024

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Education, to which was referred H.B. No. 1656 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SCHOOL BUS SERVICES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to the Department of Education to assist individuals in obtaining a commercial driver's license for the purpose of becoming school bus drivers.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Education; Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi Education Caucus; and one individual.

Your Committee finds that there is a nationwide shortage of bus drivers. This shortage has affected Hawaii by causing route cancellations and other disruptions in transportation options for students attending K-12 schools throughout the State. Your Committee notes that while around three thousand three hundred students in Hawaii depend on Department of Education funded school buses to commute to and from school, one hundred fifty out of seven hundred positions for school bus drivers were left vacant in September 2022, negatively impacting student attendance rates. Your Committee recognizes the need for funding to hire additional school bus drivers to transport more students to and from schools and believes that using funds to incentivize obtaining a commercial driver's license will encourage more people to obtain the license.

Your Committee has amended this measure by changing the effective date to July 1, 3000.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Education that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1656, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1656, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.

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

____________________________

JUSTIN H. WOODSON, Chair