HR 149 Hawaii House · 2025 Regular Session

REQUESTING THE AUDITOR TO PERFORM A COMPREHENSIVE PERFORMANCE, MANAGEMENT, AND FINANCIAL AUDIT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION AND DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING AND GENERAL SERVICES REGARDING SPENDING RELATED TO THE PLANNING, DESIGN, FINANCING, CONSTRUCTION, AND MAINTENANCE OF A NEW JAIL TO REPLACE THE OAHU COMMUNITY CORRECTIONAL CENTER.

This House Resolution requests the state Auditor to conduct a forensic audit of spending by the Departments of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Accounting and General Services related to planning, design, financing, construction, and maintenance for a new jail replacing the Oahu Community Correctional Center. It specifically targets expenditures already made ($25 million on consultants) and future funding requests ($30 million for proposals), focusing on accountability for taxpayer dollars. The resolution does not change policy but seeks to review financial decisions before proceeding with the $1 billion project. The audit will cover all phases of the proposed replacement facility's development.

Issues: ✓ Budget & Taxes

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Mar 2025

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Mar 7, 2025 Last action Mar 27, 2025

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

HR149 → HR149_HD1 · 5 edits

MODERATE

The bill was reformatted from a House Resolution into a more structured document with metadata headers and standardized formatting. The substantive policy content remains largely the same, requesting a forensic audit of correctional facility spending, though the audit scope was slightly expanded to include performance and management reviews. Several formatting and character encoding issues were corrected in the WHEREAS clauses.

Scope change

The bill's scope remains focused on auditing the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation regarding a new jail project, with no substantive change to its applicability or authority.

TECHNICAL

Document structure was changed from a plain text resolution format to include metadata headers, timestamps, and standardized formatting elements.

Character encoding issues were corrected, particularly in the WHEREAS clauses where garbled text was replaced with proper formatting.

REQUIREMENT

The audit request was expanded to include performance and management reviews in addition to financial auditing, broadening the scope of the investigation.

New specific audit requirements were added, including requests for contractor lists, procurement compliance reviews, and budget expenditure analysis.

TIMELINE

A specific deadline was added requiring the audit report to be submitted no later than twenty days before the 2026 Regular Session convenes.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Mar 27, 2025

Committee

Report adopted; referred to the committee(s) on FIN as amended in HD 1 with Representative(s) Souza voting aye with reservations; none voting no (0) and Representative(s) Hashem, Hussey, Templo, Ward excused (4).

lower

Mar 27, 2025

Committee

Reported from PBS (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 1597) as amended in HD 1, recommending referral to FIN.

lower

Mar 21, 2025

Lower · Passed

The committee on PBS recommend that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes were as follows: 6 Ayes: Representative(s) Iwamoto, Ichiyama, Poepoe, Shimizu; Ayes with reservations: Representative(s) Belatti, Souza; Noes: none; and 4 Excused: Representative(s) Hashem, Lamosao, Morikawa, Woodson.

lower

Mar 14, 2025

Committee

Referred to PBS, FIN, referral sheet 22

lower

Mar 7, 2025

Introduced

Offered

lower

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors