Minimum wage hike among new laws
Advertiser Staff
Hawai'i's minimum wage increased from $5.75 to $6.25 per hour yesterday, and nine other laws have kicked in on issues ranging from health insurance to school supplies.
The wage hike was the second such increase in two years, the result of a law the Legislature passed in 2001. It affects about 17,000 of the state's lowest-paid workers.
A year ago, the initial phase of the law raised the minimum wage from $5.25 to $5.75 per hour, the first such increase since 1993.
Some business owners had opposed the first-phase wage hike and voiced concern that businesses hit hard by the economic slump after the Sept. 11 attacks would suffer further.
But workers, unions and social service advocates said a pay increase would help the most needy, and Gov. Ben Cayetano declined to postpone the law's implementation last year.
Employers who fail to pay the new minimum wage could face misdemeanor criminal charges, said Russell Horikawa, a branch chief for the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations' wage standards division.
The legislation provides for no additional pay increases, Horikawa said.
For more information, call the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations at 586-8777 on O'ahu; 274-3351 on Kaua'i; 243-5322 on Maui; 974-6464 in Hilo; and 322-4808 in West Hawai'i.
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• Act 158 eliminated the special fund that paid for operating the state school system's centralized supply storeroom and forced its closure. The storeroom was the subject of a highly critical state audit that found school supplies had been damaged by insects or could not be properly accounted for. • Act 74 is meant to stabilize health insurance rates of managed care plans and prevent gouging. It authorizes the state insurance commissioner to require that insurers disclose all rates, charges, classifications and rules for health insurance when rates are suspected to be excessive, inadequate or unfairly discriminatory. Rates are subject to approval by the commissioner. • Act 160 requires that the state Department of Health develop programs to support and provide services for people who have suffered neurotrauma injuries, defined as severe chronic disabilities caused by central nervous system injuries such as severe brain trauma and spinal cord injuries. • Act 206 increases from $250,000 to $1.5 million the amount of money from insurance taxes that must be transferred to the state's insurance regulation fund. • Act 190 changes the way penalties for unpaid income taxes are calculated. It lowers the adjusted gross income threshold, from $150,000 to $50,000, for individuals required to make annual payments for underpaying their estimated taxes, and reduces the percentages used to determine the required annual payment, from 90 percent to 60 percent of the tax due. • Act 225 stipulates that vehicles purchased from out-of-state dealers cannot be registered in Hawai'i until the owner can prove the state's 4 percent "use tax" has been paid. • Act 237 requires warrantors to pay for damages that result from a failure of a vehicle protection product to perform as represented in a warranty. • Act 124 sets and clarifies a wide range of regulations related to parental custody of minors. • Act 51 repeals provisions requiring divorces and annulments to be registered on a form endorsed by the Department of Health and endorsed by the clerk of the court.
New laws greet new year in Hawai'i
