STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2481

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2930

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2024

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Labor and Technology and Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2930 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO EMPLOYEE BENEFITS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to extend, under certain conditions, the family leave period that employees are entitled to under state law for up to eight additional weeks for employees who are unable to perform their employment duties due to the birth of a child who is required to stay in a neonatal intensive care unit.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, Department of Human Services, Hawaiʻi Civil Rights Commission, Disability and Communications Access Board, Hawaiʻi Children's Action Network Speaks!, Hawaii State Teachers Association, Breastfeeding Hawaii, and four individuals.

Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Society of Human Resource Management Hawaii.

Your Committees find that in 2020, ten percent of babies in Hawaii were born preterm and spent weeks or months in neonatal intensive care units (NICU). Consequently, parents also spent weeks or months at the NICU in support of their babies' care. Your Committees also find that parental skin-to-skin contact, or "kangaroo care", reduces infant mortality by thirty-six percent and the length of the baby's stay in the NICU by up to one week. Your Committees also find that Oahu is the only island with a high-risk NICU in the State, forcing parents from other islands with babies in the NICU to relocate at a significant disruption and expense for an extended period. This measure will allow additional protected time off from work for these parents to keep families together at a critical time and ensure the health of their babies.

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 Labor and Technology and Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2930, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2930, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Labor and Technology and Health and Human Services,

________________________________ JOY A. SAN BUENAVENTURA, Chair

________________________________ HENRY J.C. AQUINO, Chair