Posted on: Friday, March 28, 2003

Capitol briefs

Students may face book deposit fee

Students would be charged a "textbook and instructional materials fee" of up to $20 and a textbook deposit fee, under a bill approved by the Senate Ways and Means Committee yesterday.

House Bill 32, which now goes to the full Senate, would allow the state Department of Education to collect a one-time unspecified textbook deposit fee from each student. The deposit would be returned to students when they leave the school, so long as all textbooks issued to them are returned in usable condition.

Low-income students would be exempt from paying the deposit and the $20 textbook and instructional materials fee. The bill also would allow parents to buy textbooks at the department price.

The bill also would raise the minimum age for entering kindergarten. Under the bill children would have to be 5 years old before Oct. 16 in the 2005-06 school year and be 5 years old by August beginning in the 2006-07 school year. Now children need to reach their fifth birthday by Dec. 31 of the school year to enter kindergarten.

Senate panel OKs school system bill

The Senate Ways and Means Committee yesterday approved a bill that establishes an education system including regional boards and superintendents.

The Senate's draft of House Bill 289 would set up a system of seven geographical regional education agencies each governed by an appointed board of directors. The board members would include two appointees each by the governor, the Senate president and the House speaker.

Under the bill, the regional boards' responsibilities would include appointing and evaluating the regional superintendents, prioritizing school repair and maintenance and managing discretionary funds.

The system would retain the statewide Board of Education, which would set statewide policy and handle overall budget matters.

The bill now goes to the full Senate for a floor vote.

House would allow 'training' snakes

The House has passed a bill giving the Department of Agriculture the authority to bring into Hawai'i up to four brown tree snakes to train beagles to detect the non-native species.

A 1998 law allows the department to bring in and handle only one training snake at a time, but agriculture officials said the one-snake limit hinders training because of the difficulties in obtaining a replacement when a snake dies.

As a result, it has been about a year since the department last had a snake on hand, said department spokeswoman Janelle Saneishi. The snakes used for training originate from Guam and are required to be male and sterile. They must also be fitted with a transmitter "as a safeguard," Saneishi said.

The department currently has five trained detector dogs and one in training, she said.

Environmentalists worry that the snakes, which can grow up to eight feet and could disrupt the state's ecosystem, would be able to establish a foothold here, on other Pacific islands or even the Mainland.

'Mail-order-brides' bill raises concern

The state's attorney general yesterday raised legal concerns about a "mail-order-brides" bill to make international matchmaking services provide the marital and criminal histories of its Hawai'i clients to foreign "recruits."

The primary objection centers on a proposed exemption for any "traditional matchmaking organization of a religious nature," if it operates according to the law of the recruit's home country.

Determining which company qualifies for an exemption and whether it's lawful would be impractical, Mark Bennett said in written testimony for the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.

Otherwise, the bill drew support from the Hawaii State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Na Loio Immigrant Rights and Public Interest Legal Center and a few individuals.