STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2593

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2245

       S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2245, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC SAFETY,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to provide funding for the hiring of staff to administer the Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarette Program.

 

This measure accomplishes this purpose by appropriating $400,000 from the temporary deposits account in the trust fund of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations to the Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarette Program Special Fund for the cost of implementing the program and the hiring of staff.

 

     Written comments in support of this measure were submitted by the State Fire Council, Honolulu Fire Department, County of Hawaii Fire Department, County of Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety, State Fire Council, and County of Kauai Fire Department

 

     Your Committee finds that the State Fire Council has been understaffed since it replaced the State Fire Marshal's office in 1979, and currently it consists of only one part-time staff member.  An appropriation is needed to hire two full-time personnel to the State Fire Council to effectively implement the Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarette Program's purpose of reducing the number of fires caused by discarded cigarettes.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Changing the appropriation amounts in sections 3 and 4 to unspecified sums; and

 

     (2)  Clarifying that the funds to be appropriated from "temporary deposits account in the trust fund of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations" are moneys collected pursuant to section 132C-4, Hawaii Revised Statutes, for the Reduced Ignition Propensity Program.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2245, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2245, S.D. 2.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

 

		____________________________ DAVID Y. IGE, Chair