PHOENIX — Gov. Janet Napolitano is expected to present lawmakers with a new set of recommendations on how to erase a budget shortfall by early next week, giving the House and Senate appropriations committees a roadmap as they report for work.

“That was her promise,” House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview late Monday. “It gives us a starting point on what she’s thinking about.”

The appropriations committees plan joint hearings Tuesday through Thursday of next week to formulate a plan to bring the current $10.6 billion state budget back into balance. The idea is to have the full Legislature then quickly approve the plan during a special session that would be called by Napolitano if there is an agreement.

Napolitano aides declined to discuss any commitment made by their boss during a recent meeting she had with top legislative leaders.

“I’m not able to tell you anything more than that,” said Deputy Chief of Staff Michael Haener, referring to Napolitano’s acceptance of lawmakers’ plan to start appropriations hearings early.

Presenting lawmakers with recommendations for fixing the budget for the 6-month-old current fiscal year would represent an accommodation by Napolitano, who originally planned to present them later this month when she proposes a state budget for the next fiscal year.

For their part, Republican lawmakers agreed not to begin considering the next year’s budget until after Napolitano unveils her 2008-2009 budget. That will come shortly after she gives her State of the State speech on Jan. 14, the first day of the legislative session.

A draft schedule for legislative action now calls for only appropriations panel meetings the week of Jan. 21-25 so that lawmakers can focus on the budget.

Estimates on the projected shortfall for next fiscal year, which begins July 1, range between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion.

“Given the magnitude of this budget crisis, it is of utmost importance (that) this committee and the Legislature develop solutions to these deficits in a timely manner,” the House and Senate appropriations committee’s chairmen wrote their members in a Dec. 20 memo.

Because the estimated size of the current year’s shortfall has grown since early fall, Napolitano has said she was expanding the $600 million plan she originally proposed. She said it would still be based on the same core elements: spending cuts and deferrals, use of the rainy day fund and borrowing for school construction.

Weiers said Napolitano’s revised recommendations will help lawmakers “hit the ground running” but are overdue because every day that passes without a budget fix makes it harder to accomplish.

He said lawmakers need to be aggressive about finding spending cuts and would be foolish to include borrowing in the current year’s rebalancing package because that would just delay a day of reckoning.