Gov. Jan. Brewer engages the press in a news conference behind the stage at the Tempe Center for the Arts following budget presentations to the business community.

Anyone interested in seeing Gov. Jan Brewer’s budget proposal may have to wait until next year’s legislative session.
The governor has not decided whether she will draw up and submit a full fiscal year 2010 budget plan of her own, according to spokesman Paul Senseman. Brewer has been in budget discussions with legislative leadership, and the two branches may make an unusual move by releasing a proposal together, he said.
“It could be possibly even a coordinated release,” Senseman said. “I wouldn’t say there’s anything imminent.”
At an April 9 press conference, Brewer reiterated that crafting a budget is the responsibility of the Legislature, but said she and her staff would likely provide details as the budget process moves forward.
“They have a job to deliver to me a balanced budget, and I am willing to send my expert people… over there to give them the information that we have been able to gather together,” Brewer said. “I almost believe at this point in time that we are going to probably work a little bit more… diligently to try to come up with more specific plans to present to them.”
As required by state law, then-Gov. Janet Napolitano submitted a budget proposal in January, shortly before resigning to join President Obama’s Cabinet as Homeland Security secretary. Several weeks later, Brewer said she would submit a plan of her own, indicating that it would be a fully detailed plan of the kind usually crafted by Arizona governors each year.
Since then, however, she has been publicly noncommittal about what type of plan, if any, would come out of her office, and some lawmakers don’t expect to see a budget proposal until they craft one themselves.
“I’ve been told that the governor is not going to submit her own budget this year,” said House Appropriations Chairman John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican.
Drafting a 2010 budget that both branches can agree on may be difficult, considering the solutions that Brewer is advocating to fix the estimated $3 billion deficit the state will face next year.
As part of a five-point plan unveiled to the Legislature in March, the governor proposed a temporary tax increase that would generate $1 billion a year, along with an additional $1 billion in cuts and an infusion of federal stimulus money. Brewer told lawmakers that she would welcome a balanced budget that did not include a tax hike, but said she would not sign a budget that relied solely on cuts.
Sens. Jack Harper and Russell Pearce, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said they don’t expect a budget plan from Brewer, and they’re not complaining about it either. Both Republicans vehemently oppose Brewer’s tax hike proposal.
“I would like to have more conversations with her and her staff on what we’re doing. I’d like to have them more engaged in what we’re doing. But it’s our job to do a budget. That’s the Legislature’s job with input from the governor,” Pearce said.
Harper said he would prefer that the budget process be left to the Legislature, saying that “we’re a little more versed in the state budget than even some of her staff. Many of them came from the private sector or from county government, or had been representing clients at the Capitol.”
The temporary tax increase proposal, which Brewer said would likely last about three years, has aroused the ire of many conservatives. Sen. Ron Gould, a Lake Havasu City Republican, said the likelihood of the governor and Legislature agreeing on a budget plan depends on whether she will veto a budget that does not include a tax hike.
“The way that I read her speech, it essentially said that you need to send me something that has a tax increase in it,” said Gould, who walked out on Brewer’s speech in protest when she began talking about the tax hike proposal weeks ago. “We can’t borrow. Borrowing is unconstitutional. So our only option is to cut or to sell state assets, or to raise taxes. We have three options. For most of us, we have two options.”
Harper said he is not worried about the possibility of Brewer vetoing a budget that doesn’t include a temporary tax increase.
 “I don’t believe that they are dictating details to us. So if we pass a budget without a tax increase, I don’t think they’re going to be still set on seeing a tax increase,” he said.
Brewer has not said she would veto a budget that omits a tax hike, but has been publicly critical of some alternative proposals put forward by Republican legislators. At a recent Greater Phoenix Economic Council summit, House Speaker Kirk Adams and Senate President Bob Burns, both Republicans, voiced their opposition to a tax increase, and Adams laid out budget solutions that he said could erase the deficit without raising taxes.
Among those proposals was short-term and long-term borrowing, which Adams said was more predictable and less destabilizing to the economy than a tax hike. Adams also touted securitization of state revenue streams, the sale of state assets, privatization and rollovers.
Brewer, however, dismissed some of those plans, and said, “I would hope that they … would bring me something a little bit more with specifics to it, other than rollovers, securitization, disappointing things, I believe.”
On the other side of the aisle, some Democrats have said they would like to hear more details from Brewer. Rep. Steve Farley, a Tucson Democrat, suggested that the Republican governor would face less opposition from her party if she put forth a plan of her own.
“When the governor submits a plan, it might be easier for the Republicans to sign onto it than it would for them to sign onto our plan,” Farley said, speaking of a list of budget options released recently by House Democrats. “The five-point plan with clauses isn’t actually a budget.”
House Assistant Minority Leader Kyrsten Sinema said she would like Brewer to provide more details to the Legislature.
“She’s talked about the five-point plan all across the state, and we’re glad that she’s talking about the budget. But the five-point plan is really broad and doesn’t give, I think, a lot of direction to the Legislature about what she wants to see in a budget,” Sinema said.
Both the Republican and Democratic caucuses have released budget proposals, though nothing has been introduced in the Legislature. Kavanagh said he expects the House to have a budget plan the week of April 13, and Gould said the Senate may have a plan ready the week after that.  ≠