SB 3116 Hawaii Senate · 2026 Regular Session

RELATING TO EDUCATION.

Summary

Updates Hawaii's statutory framework for adult and community education programs to ensure alignment with federal funding requirements and current best practices in those programs. (SD1)

Issues: ✓ Education

Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2026

Committee Review

Feb 2026

Senate Passage

Feb 2026

House Passage

Governor

Introduced Jan 26, 2026 Last action Feb 20, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

SB3116 → SB3116_SD1 · 6 edits

MODERATE

This bill updates Hawaii's adult education laws to align with current federal requirements, specifically the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. The changes clarify the legislative intent, modernize program definitions to include workplace literacy, and refine eligibility criteria for youth and adults. Technical updates include correcting the year in federal act citations and standardizing age definitions.

Scope change

The bill's scope is expanded to explicitly include 'workforce preparation programs' as a core component of adult education, whereas the previous version focused primarily on basic and advanced elementary education.

FISCAL

Updated references to federal acts to include specific years (1998 and 2014) to ensure accurate alignment with federal funding requirements.

DEFINITION

Changed the definition of 'Adult' from 'age eighteen or older' to 'eighteen years of age or older' for consistency.

ELIGIBILITY

Revised the definition of 'Basic skills deficient' to clarify that youth must 'have' specific skill levels rather than 'is a youth that the individual has', improving grammatical clarity and precision.

SCOPE

Added 'workforce preparation programs' as a core component of the adult education framework.

REQUIREMENT

Renamed the 'Homemaking and parent education' program to 'Family and community education' to reflect modern terminology.

TECHNICAL

Corrected formatting and citation styles throughout the document, including fixing hyphenation in section references and standardizing date formats.

Floor votes

How they voted

This bill passed the Senate by voice vote (no roll call recorded).

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Feb 20, 2026

Upper · Passed

Report adopted; Passed Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referred to WAM.

upper

Feb 20, 2026

Committee

Reported from EDU (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 2581) with recommendation of passage on Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referral to WAM.

upper

Feb 18, 2026

Upper · Passed

The committee(s) on EDU recommend(s) that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes in EDU were as follows: 3 Aye(s): Senator(s) Kim, Hashimoto, DeCorte; Aye(s) with reservations: none ; 0 No(es): none; and 2 Excused: Senator(s) Kidani, Fukunaga.

upper

Feb 13, 2026

Upper · Passed

The committee(s) on EDU has scheduled a public hearing on 02-18-26 1:02PM; CR 229 & Videoconference.

upper

Feb 2, 2026

Committee

Referred to EDU, WAM.

upper

Jan 28, 2026

Introduced

Introduced.

upper

Jan 26, 2026

Introduced

Pending Introduction.

upper

1 primary · 0 co-sponsors