STAND. COM. REP. NO 3155

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    H.B. No. 2560

       H.D. 2

       S.D. 2

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 2560, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, entitled:

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

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

     (1)  Permit the continued operation of family child care homes in agriculturally designated districts if located in a farm dwelling; and

     (2)  Authorize caregivers in family child care homes to provide care for one to six, rather than three to six, children unrelated to the caregivers.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Good Beginnings Alliance, PHOCUSED, People Attentive to Children, Hawaii Association for the Education of Young Children, and twenty-four individuals.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Agriculture, Office of Planning, and two individuals.

     Your Committee finds that licensed child care is scarce in rural areas around the State, despite the State's efforts to promote farming and sustainability, and family child care homes are often the only form of available and affordable child care in agriculturally designated districts.  Existing law prevents family child care homes from becoming properly licensed, and special use permits to operate a family child care home on agricultural land are cost prohibitive.  Hawaii cannot afford to lose existing licensed child care spaces, as parents will have no safe place to take their children while they go to work.  Family child care homes are an integral part of the State's early care and learning system and benefit rural communities that have limited access to other programs.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2560, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2560, H.D. 2, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs,

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair