House Minority Leader Diego T. Benavente, R-Saipan, on Friday said they plan to work diligently with the leadership on the fiscal year 2012 budget.
As suggested by acting Gov. Eloy S. Inos, there will be a joint budget panel split into two teams.
The first team will focus on revenue generating measures while the other will look at cost reduction ideas.
Benavente said these two team will decide which public services will be prioritized in FY 2012, when the government’s revenue projection is $120 million, or $12 million less than the current budget.
“We already saw (a shortfall) in the first quarter. The administration told us that we were $6 million short not due to overspending but lack of revenue,” Benavente added.
To avoid more problems, he said, “we need to start acting today.”
He said finding additional revenue is not enough. “We still need to reduce spending,” he added,
Benavente is now waiting for the House leadership to start forming the budget teams as suggested by Inos.
“We’ll do it as a team. And as joint leadership we will agree which programs will be sacrificed in order to save critical public services,” he said.
For his part, Inos said the administration is willing to work with the Legislature in identifying areas of concerns.
Once the administration submits its budget proposal on April 1, he added, the Legislature can still get more information from departments and agencies.
Traditionally, Inos said, the departments and agencies are given a chance to appear before lawmakers and justify their budget submissions.
But it may not be a good idea this time, he added.
“They always ask for more funds,” he said. “And that is understandable. But many times, it conflicts with the governor’s priorities. And many times such a situation creates problems in achieving a speedy resolution of the budget process.”
Last year, the Legislature failed to pass the budget on time, resulting in a one-week partial government shutdown.
