STAND

 

STAND. COM. REP. 2496

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2004

RE: S.B. No. 2256

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2004

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Education and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 2256, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION PERSONNEL,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds for personnel clerks in the Department of Education.

Your Committees received testimony in support of the measure from the University of Hawaii, Department of Education and Hawaii State Teachers Association.

Your Committees find that there are currently an inadequate number of personnel clerks to meet the demands for the processing of recruitment, reclassification, records and transactions, and payroll requests for the increasing number of teachers. For the Department of Education personnel staff, overtime hours have become a necessity in order to complete processing of teacher requests and enable teachers to receive their salary increases. The overtime work is ongoing throughout the year resulting in long illnesses among the staff.

Your Committees further find that the lack of adequate staffing has also been compounded by the Department of Education's inability to fill many vacancies due to the freeze on hiring. Consequently, there has been an additional delay in overall processing of teacher requests.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Education and Labor that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2256, and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Education and Labor,

____________________________ BRIAN KANNO, Chair		____________________________ NORMAN SAKAMOTO, Chair