Gov. Jan Brewer has called lawmakers into a special legislative session to solve an estimated $1.6 billion deficit in the fiscal 2009 state budget.

She issued the proclamation ordering the session at 9:26 p.m. on Jan. 28. The special session will run concurrently with the regular session that began earlier this month.

House and Senate leaders met for much of the day in an attempt to reconcile differences between the budget packages each chamber had proposed.

Passing a budget fix in a special session allows the spending changes to take effect sooner than if it were approved in the regular session. Lawmakers have set a Jan. 31 deadline to pass a budget fix to prevent the deficit from growing larger.

After days of discussion, Brewer felt confident that she and legislative leadership had reached common ground, and she also expects the Legislature to have a fix for the 2009 budget by the end of the week, according to spokesman Paul Senseman.

"They're certainly on the same page as to how important it is to get something done," Senseman said.

Brewer had been speaking with legislative leadership about a fix for the 2009 budget since before her Jan. 21 inauguration, and had been "getting down to some of the details" since Jan. 23, Senseman said. She did not submit a proposal to the Legislature, he said, but has provided substantial input and has "put her fingerprints" on the proposed fix.

"This problem is substantially worse with each day passing," Senseman said.