STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1371

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: H.B. No. 67

H.D. 1

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2023

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Higher Education and Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 67, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR THE PU‘UHONUA PROGRAM,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for the establishment of three full-time equivalent (3.0 FTE) positions for the University of Hawaii Windward Community College's Pu‘uhonua Program.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Public Safety, University of Hawai‘i System, Kahalu‘u Neighborhood Board No. 29, Community Alliance on Prisons, Hawai‘i Friends of Restorative Justice, Ko‘olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, and eleven individuals.

Your Committees find that completing college coursework while incarcerated significantly benefits incarcerated individuals, the carceral environment, and society as a whole. In recognition of these benefits, the University of Hawaii Windward Community College established the Pu‘uhonua Program (Program) to offer credit-bearing college coursework and support services to incarcerated individuals. Since the Program's establishment in 2017, two hundred eighteen students have enrolled in college coursework, collectively earning over one thousand college credits and thirteen certificates. While the Program continues to experience strong engagement from students each year, the nonrenewable federal extramural funding supporting the Program and its staff will expire in 2023. Therefore, this measure appropriates funds for counselor and coordinator positions within the University of Hawaii Windward Community College's Pu‘uhonua Program to support the educational development of the State's incarcerated individuals.

Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Higher Education and Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 67, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 67, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Higher Education and Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs,

________________________________ GLENN WAKAI, Chair

________________________________ DONNA MERCADO KIM, Chair