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Committee backs funding measure to help judiciary contract with community-based organizations
Summary
The Senate Judiciary Committee recommended passage of HB 560, which appropriates funds to the judiciary for contracts with community-based organizations that provide services to vulnerable households; testimony stressed rising costs and a growing gap between contract rates and service delivery costs.
The Senate Committee on Judiciary recommended passage of House Bill 560, which appropriates funds to the judiciary to contract with community-based organizations that provide essential services, streamline judicial processes, and support the judiciary’s work with vulnerable households.
Witnesses representing statewide and local nonprofit providers urged the committee to fund the “true cost” of contracted services. Tricia Kajimura, representing Parents and Children Together (PACT), said, “We're a statewide social services organization” and testified in “strong support” that contract rates have not kept pace with operating costs. Hannah Lisiak, representing the True Cost Coalition, added that the coalition is “comprised of over 70 community based nonprofit organizations” and that “the true cost of these services has increased far more dramatically than appropriations from contract increases have.”
Other supporters who submitted testimony or spoke included Ku'ikahi Mediation Center, Volunteer Legal Services Hawaii, YWCA Kauai, Hawaii Health & Harm Reduction Center, Legal Clinic, Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, Hawaii True Cost Coalition representatives, Child and Family Service, and several domestic-violence and youth-service providers. Several witnesses highlighted rising insurance costs and uncertain federal funding as pressures that increase the gap between contract payments and actual service costs.
In decision making the committee recommended passage with amendments and set a defective date different from the original; committee members recorded no recorded no votes against the recommendation and adopted the measure. The committee did not record specific appropriation amounts in the hearing record; proponents said the funding would address operating shortfalls in contracts that fund domestic-violence intervention, youth services, and other programs supporting vulnerable households.
Committee members did not request additional fiscal details during the hearing record included in the transcript.
