Senate Standing Committee on Government Operations

Foreign everybody. Welcome to the Committee hearing on government operations. Today is Thursday, March 20th, 2025. 3:00pm Conference room 225. This all right. This meeting is being streamed live on YouTube and you like the event that we have to abruptly end this hearing due to technical difficulties.

The Committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business at 3:01pm Tuesday, March 252025 in room 225. And a public notice will be posted on the Legislature's website. However, considering this is the deadline for RESOs, that won't be happening. So okay, with that, we'll get right into the agenda here, a couple resos.

First up, SCR239, SR215 requesting DAGs, DLNR and Honolulu City and County of Parks and Rec to provide universal changing accommodations in all state facilities. State parks, city and county parks. First up, we have late testimony from dags. They have submitted comments on the measure and that's all we have on 239215.

Is there anybody in the audience wishing you'd testify or in the world of zoom seeing? None. We'll move on to the final res on the agenda, which is scr44.

This requests the Senate Standing Committee and House of Reps Standing committees whose purview includes consumer protection with the support of the LRB to convene a legislative working group to determine recommendations for establishing appropriate family notice and standardized consent provisions for pre need contracts governing cremation.

First up, we have Esther Brown, Complaints and Enforcement Office of DCCA RICO that she has submitted comments requesting the inclusion of the Department of Health Environmental Branch. We also have. I'm sorry, they have submitted Testimony asking for DCCA to be excluded. So SCR 44 Chelsea Fukunaga, DCCA PBL. Thank you so much. We appreciate testimony.

You're the ones who noted the addition of the Department of Health, right? Okay. We have Legislative Reference Bureau testimony with comments. We have lake testimony written from Senator Carol Fukunaga. She has submitted testimony in support. State Senate District 11. We have Jay Morford, Hawaii Funeral and Cemetery Association.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair. I'm President of the Hawaii Funeral and Cemetery Association and we stand on our written testimony in opposition and primarily we don't feel it's necessary due to the fact that our funeral homes already provide disclosure on this measure and our cremation authorization forms. So that's basically where we're at on that. It seems like a exercise on something we're always already doing.

Okay, I understand your concerns. Thank you for being here, sir. We appreciate you. We also have Eadean Buffington from Mililani Group. They've submitted testimony in opposition. We have Mitchell Dodo for Dodo Mortuary Inc. They have submitted testimony in opposition. We have late from Ricki Aoki, Vice President for Hosoi Garden Mortuary. They too are in opposition. We have late from Mr. Jim Shoen, individual.

He is in support and that I believe is all we have on SCR 44. So knowing that, is there anybody else in the audience wishing to testify? The World of Zoom. Is there anybody wishing to testify? Senate Members, are there any questions? Okay, if not, we're gonna go right into decision making if that's good with everybody. First resolution.

We're gonna go ahead and we're going to, we're going to go ahead and adopt a Senate Draft One . We need to make some technical, non substantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency and style. However, we feel it's a good reso and a good thing we can do this in all these facilities.

So we appreciate the comments of Dags, but we'd like to move it along. Members, questions? Comments? If Not Vice Chair. 239215 Senate Draft One. I vote yes.

Vice Chair. Votes aye. Senator Moriwaki. Excuse. Senator San Buenaventura. Aye. Senator Favela excused the measures adopted.

Okay, thank you very much. SCR44 Members, this is a discussion that really needs to take place over in the CPN Committee.

So in order to give the both the entities that have expressed concerns, we're going to put these concerns in the Committee report and this would give them the ability to be able to have a full throated hearing to get their concerns on the table behind the issues as well as the proposed components.

So we're going to move this along as a Senate draft one. We're going to note the concerns in the Committee report. We're also going to go ahead and while we appreciate the DCCA wanting to be out of the working group, by doing that we would take away the purview of cpn. We're going to leave them in.

However, we are going to add and of course the Chair of Health will probably have to concur going forward or be added to the RESO if it goes to conference with the House.

We are going to add the Department of Health Environmental branch as suggested by DCC and we'll move this on to the Next Committee for further much more detailed discussions. Again noting the concerns that were raised by the testifiers today.

Okay, Senator?

Yes.

Jurisdiction. The jurisdiction section.

Ohyeah, sorry about that. We're gonna also. My bad. My Committee Clerk noted that we're gonna go ahead and we're going to change mainland jurisdiction to the words other states, since the word mainland jurisdiction is kind of weird. And we're also making additional technical, non substantive changes for clarity, consistency and style. I believe that's everything. Correct.

Okay, Members, questions and comments. If not Vice Chair, 44. Senate draft one. I'll vote yes.

Vice Chair votes aye. Senator San Buenaventura. Aye. Senator Morawaki and Senator Favela are excused. The measure is adopted.

All right, thank you guys for being here. Appreciate. This concludes the hearing.