Governor-elect Doug Ducey is busy putting his transition team together, but those who are waiting for the details of his agenda will have to wait a little longer.

Ducey campaigned heavily on boosting the economy and reforming K-12 education, and has vowed to balance the state’s fiscal year 2016 $1 billion budget deficit without raising taxes. He has also pledged to “fully fund the wait lists” at the state’s top-performing charter and district schools, though he hasn’t said how that would be accomplished or exactly what that would mean.

Since his victory in the Nov. 4 election, Ducey has not elaborated on the details of any those proposals. He said more details will be forthcoming at his Jan. 5 inauguration, his first State of the State address on Jan. 12, and the release of his first executive budget proposal on Jan. 16.

“We’ll have very specific items in each of those,” Ducey said.

During a Nov. 17 interview with the Arizona Capitol Times, Ducey said he’ll accomplish those goals, “by bringing people together through the transition, naming specific policy advisers and then putting pen to paper in terms of the specific program and how it looks like, working with people in the Legislature to move those bills forward and passing them through the process.”

So far, the governor-elect has not announced who will serve on his staff when he moves onto the Ninth Floor. The rumor mill has churned out several names, including top campaign aides, but Ducey has confirmed nothing, and sources said he did not want to even contemplate gubernatorial staff positions until after the election.

Those staffing decisions will be largely determined by the work of his transition team, which has not yet been filled out either. Shortly after the election, Ducey announced that former U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, an early endorser of the state treasurer and former Cold Stone Creamery CEO, would head his transition team.

On Nov. 18, Ducey announced two high-profile additions to the team who would join Kyl as co-chairs: former Arizona House Speaker Kirk Adams and Arizona Board of Regents President Eileen Klein, who served as outgoing Gov. Jan Brewer’s chief of staff from 2009 to 2012.

Days later, Ducey also announced the formation of his transition team’s education subcommittee. He named three co-chairs to the education team: former Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Graham Keegan; Matthew Ladner, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Excellence in Education; and Erik Twist, vice president of Archway Advancement at Great Hearts Academies.

The state budget and its projected $1 billion deficit in fiscal year 2016 is likely to dominate Ducey’s first session. Ducey hasn’t provided any substantive solutions to the budget situation. He again said he’ll try find savings among the “80 separate agencies that report to the governor,” which he said have a combined budget of about $1 billion. He noted that 27 percent of the state’s workforce is slated to retire in the next four years, though that doesn’t appear to provide much in the way of savings for fiscal year 2016.

Ducey took a step toward figuring out how to balance the budget with the creation of a seven-person Budget Study Committee.

“We’re going to be focused very much on the task at hand, putting the right people in the right places. And we’re beginning with the budget situation. We’ve got a great mix of people there, both from the public sector and the private sector. I’ve tasked them with doing the homework. And I’ll be part of this committee so that we can take a look at the options and what’s possible to have the best solutions for our state going forward,” Ducey said.

Two key Brewer staffers – longtime budget chief John Arnold and director of policy Michael Hunter – will serve on Ducey’s budget committee, along with Maricopa County Manager Tom Manos, who served as Brewer’s deputy chief of staff for finance and budget in 2009.

The committee also includes:

– Jennifer Stielow, vice president of the Arizona Tax Research Association.

– Donald “D.J.” Cole, CEO of Capital Consultants Management Corporation and the chief financial officer at Cold Stone Creamery under Ducey.

– Alan Maguire, an economist and president of The Maguire Company, an economic forecasting and consulting firm.

– Norman Stout, a partner with True North Venture Partners.

Ducey said the best way to improve Arizona’s budget situation would be to grow the state’s economy. He said a 1 percent increase in economic growth would provide $500 million in new revenue to the state.

With the budget crisis likely to bar much new spending, Ducey emphasized that there are still things he can accomplish in his first year that don’t cost additional money.

“I think there will be opportunities regardless of the situation and we’ll find those opportunities,” Ducey said. “Not every good idea costs money.”

One such proposal that Ducey said he would push next year is his plan for all high school students to pass an American civics exam as a requirement for graduation. He also reiterated his plan to continue Brewer’s moratorium on new regulations, which she enacted shortly after taking office in 2009.

A meatier area Ducey said he wants to tackle next year is his proposal to “fully fund the wait lists” at top schools. Though the operative word of that plan is “fund,” Ducey said he may be able to accomplish his goal by redirecting other K-12 funds.

“We’ve got $10 billion washing through this education system at the local level, the state level and the federal level. What I want to look at is where are there opportunities where dollars could possibly be repurposed or where there’s flexibility so that we can fund what we know works, like early childhood literacy, like more dollars in the classroom, and an idea that I have, which is to have that flexibility to fund wait lists,” he said.