Bill Text: HI SR105 | 2010 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: National Guard and Reserve; Retirement

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Passed) 2010-04-01 - (S) Report and Resolution Adopted, as amended (SD 1). [SR105 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2010-SR105-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2942

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.R. No. 105

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2010

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Public Safety and Military Affairs and Transportation, International and Intergovernmental Affairs, to which was referred S.R. No. 105 entitled:

 

"SENATE RESOLUTION URGING MEMBERS OF HAWAII'S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION TO SUPPORT H.R. 208, THE NATIONAL GUARDSMEN AND RESERVISTS PARITY FOR PATRIOTS ACT, AND S. 644, THE NATIONAL GUARD AND RESERVE RETIRED PAY EQUITY ACT OF 2009,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to urge members of Hawaii's congressional delegation to support H.R. 208, the National Guardsmen and Reservists Parity for Patriots Act, and S. 644, the National Guard and Reserve Retired Pay Equity Act of 2009, which would include service after September 11, 2001, as service qualifying for the determination of a reduced eligibility age for receipt of non-regular service retired pay for members of the National Guard and Active Reserve.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from one state department.  Written testimony presented to the Committees may be reviewed on the Legislature's website.

 

     When the Reserve and National Guard Retirement Pay System was established in 1948, members of the National Guard and Active Reserve were presumed to have full-time civilian careers subject to extended military service only in the unlikely event of a national mobilization.  This retirement system was intended to supplement a normal civilian career promotion and retirement program.  Frequent activations remove guard members and reservists from their civilian careers, often costing them promotions and some­times their jobs, which directly reduces their civilian retirement pay. However, reserve mission increases and a smaller force structure mean that guard members and reservists are devoting a far greater share of their civilian working lives to military service than originally envisioned by the creators of the and National Guard Retirement Pay System.

 

     The National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 reduced the reserve retirement age from age sixty by three months for every ninety days of active duty performed since January 28, 2008.  However, it provided no credit for the hundreds of thousands of service members who were called up for duty between September 11, 2001, and January 28, 2008, during the height of deployments to missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.  H.R. 208, the National Guardsmen and Reservists Parity for Patriots Act, and S. 644, the National Guard and Reserve Retired Pay Equity Act of 2009, would make the 2008 change retroactive to September 11, 2001.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety and Military Affairs and Transportation, International and Intergovernmental Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees concur with the intent and purpose of S.R. No. 105, as amended herein, and recommend its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.R. No. 105, S.D. 1.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety and Military Affairs and Transportation, International and Intergovernmental Affairs,

 

____________________________ J. KALANI ENGLISH, Chair		____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair