House Floor Leader George N. Camacho, in a separate interview, said the individual allotment of each member is likely to go down from $5,000 to $3,000 a month.
Camacho, Ind.-Saipan, said in previous fiscal years, a lawmaker received $9,000 a month.
While the House is working on the numbers indicated in Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s budget submission, the Senate has been meeting with different government agencies and urging them to have a “contingency plan” for the “very low budget” in FY 2012, which starts on Oct. 1.
The Legislature has two months left to pass the budget and avoid a government shutdown.
Taimanao, Ind.-Rota, said her committee is working closely with her House counterpart, Rep. Ramon S. Basa, Covenant-Saipan.
She said they had agreed to work within the governor’s $102 million budget submission.
“The budget bill will soon be on our floor and we will retain the same number,” she said, adding that discretionary funds “have to be cut.”
Taimanao said they will also have to “evaluate’ the leadership accounts which will also be reduced.
She could not say how much exactly — “we must see the House version first,” she said.
Likewise, the Legislative Bureau’s budget will have to be cut, she added.
“One of the legal counsels of the Senate is out already and the Senate president informed us that we may have only one legal counsel,” she said.
