House Finance Committee passes HB1440 with technical amendments to fund legislature and oversight offices

The House Committee on Finance voted to pass House Bill 1440, as amended to HD1 with technical corrections, providing appropriations for the legislature, the Legislative Reference Bureau, the State Auditor, the office of the ombudsman and the Hawaii State Ethics Commission.

The measure funds core legislative operations and oversight offices that support the Hawaii Legislature. Supporters including the Legislative Reference Bureau, the State Ombudsman and the Hawaii State Ethics Commission testified in favor of the bill during a morning hearing; the State Auditor flagged a numerical error in the draft appropriation that the committee corrected before voting.

Charlotte Carter Yamauchi, director of the Legislative Reference Bureau, testified that the bureau "stand[s] in very strong support of this measure" and relied on submitted written testimony. Robin Matsunaga, State Ombudsman, similarly offered written testimony in support. Robert Harris, with the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, said, "We are in support of this measure," and provided the commission's annual report as part of the record.

State Auditor Les Kondo, who appeared with Deputy Auditor Daria Loy Go-to, told the committee his office submitted written testimony in support but noted an earlier misstatement in the requested appropriation: "This morning I was told that our appropriation that we supported was of was, $2,800,000 too much. But we understand the error, so we certainly appreciate the correction which we should have caught ourselves." Kondo described the auditor's office as "a really valuable resource for the legislature," outlining the office's role in performance audits of state programs.

During the committee's decision-making session, members approved technical amendments that removed a duplicated line-item of $6,561,208 and set the corrected appropriation total for the package to $203,761,000, reflecting the adjustment Kondo referenced. Committee leadership described other minor rounding edits; the committee recorded the bill as passing with those technical changes and adopted the Chair's recommendation to pass with amendments.

The roll call recorded the Chair and the Vice Chair voting "aye," along with Representatives Stated by name during the roll call: Grandinetti, Holt, Hussey, Keohokapu Leloy, Kisagawa, Kush, Lamasau, Lee, Miyake, Morikawa, Alcos and Reyes Oda. Representative Ward was excused. The committee then adjourned.

The committee did not take additional substantive amendments to policy language during the session; discussion focused on written testimony from oversight offices and numerical corrections to the appropriation schedule. The action moves the bill out of the House Committee on Finance with a recommendation to pass as HD1.