HANO'S AGENDA, APRIL 2011

President's message:

Lawmakers must not forget
the value of nonprofits

The recent tragedy in Japan reminded us how important first responders and crisis management services are. It also spurred an impressive charitable response from Hawaii. Many of the heroes have been nonprofit organizations doing what they do best and reaffirming the value of our sector.

Here in Hawaii, tensions are high at the Legislature as bills are referred to a last committee before second decking and crossover. House and Senate remain at odds with each other and with the governor over how to close a $1.3 billion budget deficit. Competing proposals to cut expenses and boost revenue are being floated. The Abercrombie administration has called for calm and shared sacrifice, while the specter of a general excise tax increase weighs heavily on everyone. 

Two proposals, HB 799 and HB 1270, would have taxed nonprofits' gross incomes. At the request of HANO and others, both bills were modified to drop nonprofits from the list of those being taxed, and then HB 799 was killed by the Senate Economic Development and Technology committee. Meanwhile, the Ways and Means Committee is still working on its version of HB 1270. The contents of HB 799 may yet show up again and taxing nonprofits could be resurrected.

The House Judiciary committee deferred the gifts bill, SB 671, which may die this session due to the controversy it stirred. HANO provided comments along the way as the bill morphed to accommodate the many voices weighing in on this matter. If the bill dies, the recent Ethics Commission opinion stands and legislators will only be able to attend nonprofit events if the value of the experience is less than $25. We recognize that it's difficult to make an exception in the gifts law for nonprofits, but we wonder how organizations can educate lawmakers and raise their awareness about critical community issues under this new ruling.

HANO is also working to keep the bill, SB 777 on late payments of contracted goods and services, alive. It asks for a legislatively mandated task force managed by DAGS and comprised of state government departments, legislative reps and community voices like HANO and PHOCUSED to better understand the late contract payments matter and propose remedies.

We're also tracking SB 778 which proposed to repeal Act 155 (2010), which imposed personal liability on boards and select staff and possible revocation of tax-exempt status for willful neglect to fulfill GET payment and filing obligations.  The bill has been deferred in the Finance Committee. We worry that personal liability will scare many competent and qualified volunteers away from board service.

HANO has also weighed in on SB 1233, which makes technical changes to the Attorney General's charitable organization registration process. 

A bright spot in this session has been SB 1349, which makes technical changes to the Nonprofit Corporations Act to permit member actions by ballot and electronic voting, use of electronic notice and conduct of meetings by teleconference. It has been our pleasure to support this measure and we thank Jeff Piper of Schlack Ito, LLC for authoring and shepherding this bill through the process.

We just got word that a slew of bills just popped up at the City and County of Honolulu proposing different forms of real property taxation. Stay tuned for more info.

Legislative session is far from over and some of the toughest decisions by our public officials are yet to come. Click here for a complete update of all bills HANO has been tracking.

Here is this month's newsletter.

Mahalo,

Lisa Mariyama
HANO president & CEO

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