STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2249

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2211

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2026

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.B. No. 2211 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN EMERGENCY APPROPRIATION TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to make an emergency appropriation to the Department of Human Services to provide emergency assistance to households participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and to expand food delivery services through its contracted community-based providers, including to supplement or expand the Hawaii Emergency Food Assistance Program.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Human Services, Aloha United Way, Hawaii Food Industry Association, Catholic Charities Hawaiʻi, Hawaii Academy of Family Physicians, Hawaii Primary Care Association, AARP Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Farm Bureau, Hawaii Health & Harm Reduction Center, AlohaCare, Hawaiʻi Public Health Institute, Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law & Economic Justice, and eight individuals.

Your Committee finds that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) plays a critical role in helping low-income individuals and families access food during periods of economic hardship. Your Committee further finds that disruptions in SNAP benefits can have immediate and serious impacts on food security, health, and household stability. This measure addresses an emergency situation resulting from disruptions in federal SNAP benefit distribution and provides the Department of Human Services with the flexibility needed to mitigate harm to vulnerable households.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Deleting its contents and inserting the language from S.B. No. 3129, a substantively similar measure that provides an emergency appropriation to the Department of Human Services to replace general fund appropriations redirected to provide emergency food assistance during the 2025 federal government shutdown; and

(2) Changing the appropriation from $14,248,126 to an unspecified amount, to facilitate further discussion on the measure.

Your Committee notes that this measure, as amended, contains an unspecified appropriation amount. Should your Committee on Ways and Means choose to deliberate on this measure, your Committee respectfully requests that it consider inserting an appropriation amount of $14,248,126 to offset costs incurred by the Department of Human Services in providing emergency food assistance to Hawaii residents during the federal government shutdown.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health and Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2211, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2211, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health and Human Services,

________________________________

JOY A. SAN BUENAVENTURA, Chair