Arizona has no mechanism in place to cope with the lack of a budget when the new fiscal year starts — something that hasn’t happened before.

Brewer has said a shutdown would be a “disaster” but her administration hasn’t spelled out what services could continue. Meanwhile, key lawmakers were drafting emergency legislation to temporarily continue at least services deemed essential.

It’s a far cry from what was expected when Brewer, herself a former legislator with a conservative record, took over as governor in January, replacing Democrat Janet Napolitano left to become U.S. Homeland Security secretary.

But Brewer took office amid a recession that has seen tax revenues plummet due to the housing industry’s collapse, rising unemployment and dampened consumer spending.

The latest estimate on the projected shortfall for the fiscal year starting Wednesday is $3.2 billion in a state budget that would normally range up to $10 billion.

She surprised lawmakers by calling for the sales tax increase in March, saying the anticipated $1 billion in annual revenue from that plus spending cuts and federal stimulus dollars would keep the state in the black without damaging essential services.

“I will not allow K-12 education to be decimated nor will I allow the elderly, the children and the most frail of our society to be put at risk,” Brewer said.

Republican lawmakers have said Brewer’s rhetoric about spending cuts is exaggerated but that significant cuts must be made because the state’s budget troubles will continue for several years. And they said the last thing the state’s ailing economy needs is a tax increase.

The Legislature on June 4 passed a budget that didn’t include the sales tax increase, but lawmakers feared a veto and didn’t send the bills to Brewer. The state Supreme Court refused to order lawmakers to send her the bills last week, as she’d asked.

Meanwhile, a month of negotiations between Brewer and GOP legislative leaders on Friday produced a compromise that includes sending the sales tax increase to a November special election ballot and approving outright a brand-new proposal to flatten the state’s income tax in 2012. And if initial revenue from the sales tax increase boosts state revenue in what’s left of the new fiscal year above projections, spending cuts for K-12 schools would be automatically reduced.

But the Legislature on Monday was moving slowly to consider the package, leaving open the question of whether a budget would be approved by midnight Tuesday.

Possibilities to avoid a shutdown without a budget include passage of temporary spending authority to keep all or parts of state government going while work continues on approving a budget. And Brewer could approve the June 4 budget bills that lawmakers plan to send her without or with the changes that would be made under the compromise unveiled Friday.

In documents inspected by The Associated Press under a public records request, state agencies said lack of a budget would leave a stripped-down state government that would send thousands of employees home, leaving many offices closed and programs unstaffed.

For example, half of the Highway Patrol staff would be sent home, routine road maintenance suspended and visitation at state prisons canceled, according to agencies’ submissions.

Brewer spokesman Paul Senseman called plans preliminary and proposed, but he declined to specify what government agencies would continue other than limited functions mandated by the Arizona Constitution and state prisons.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Russell Pearce, a Republican who is drafting an emergency spending authority bill, said it’s clear that Brewer needs legislative authority of one sort of another to keep government going.

Arizona isn’t alone in either facing budget trouble this year and not having an automatic way to cope for lack of an agreement, said Todd Haggerty, a research analyst for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The recession has left a majority of states facing budget shortfalls, and at least 20 considered tax hikes of one sort or another, he said. “These are tough questions and tough issues that states are having to deal with, and there’s unfortunately no easy answers.”

Some states have provisions for continuing government operations without an approved budget, but most do not, he said.

Since 2002, at least 14 states have started a new fiscal year without an approved budget; five of them experienced a partial government shutdown, he said.

The possibility of a state shutdown has some lawmakers and other people worried.

Democratic Sen. Paula Aboud of Tucson said she’s worried about the possibility of a state government shutdown partly because she lived in Maine when that state had a two-week shutdown in the early 1990s.

“Everything ground to a halt. The only thing that was gong on was (the state police),” Aboud said. “Traffic subsided on the roads. Services were not available. People couldn’t get birth certificates, drivers licenses, things like that.”

Dane Naimark, president of the Phoenix-based Children’s Action Alliance, said a shutdown would interrupt child care subsidies for low-income families and mean people calling child-protection workers to report abuse and neglect hear a recording telling them to call police instead.

“A shutdown would cause a lot of pain and chaos,” Naimark said.