PHOENIX ÷ State lawmakers said yesterday they would release a new budget proposal for next year within two weeks. The proposal may still include cuts to UA's budget, which they have previously proposed to be about 5 percent.

The state budget proposal the Republican chairs of the appropriations committees released in January cut a variety of human services for the poor and ill, and has been called "draconian" by members of the legislature's Republican leadership. But the leadership's stance on more cuts to the universities next year doesn't seem likely to soften much in the next budget proposal.

Republican Senate President Ken Bennett said yesterday that his colleagues in the legislature might ask the universities to "trim some fat or dead weight," from their budget, but that he'd try to ensure the universities still receive money for new research buildings.

So the legislature would essentially propose cutting about $20 million of the money that UA and Arizona Health Sciences Center would use to pay employees next year, while giving the UA $15 million to build new research facilities.

But UA lobbyist Greg Fahey said there wasn't any extra spending on campus that could just be easily cut.

"If you think we should be cut, we already have," Fahey said. "After thirteen and a half percent cuts, there's no fat there. All the fat's been cut. What they're going to need next is a meat ax to cut bone."

UA and Arizona Health Sciences Center receive about $316.5 million in funding from the state's general fund, the fund most burdened by a state deficit of more than $1 billion. UA is not among the programs protected by voters that Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano has compiled. Such unprotected programs make up half of the state's $6 billion budget, according to Napolitano's figures, leaving lawmakers few places to look when the universities make up about a third of the budget that is not protected from cuts by voters.

But Napolitano holds veto power over the budget and said Tuesday that she won't support any "substantial cuts" to the universities. She quickly corrected herself and said she wouldn't support "any cuts at all" to the universities.

Napolitano has protected the UA from more budget cuts for the rest of this fiscal year, or at least until July 1. Her budget relies on fund transfers, lots of borrowing and revenue projections that she calls legit, but Republicans have called overly optimistic. It remains to be seen whether the war in Iraq will impact the Arizona economy and change her projections.

The governor held a rally of sorts for lobbyists yesterday, telling them to put pressure on their representatives and encourage citizens to call and visit legislators in the next few weeks to ask them to adopt her budget.

"There are some real differences here that will affect Arizona for years to come," Napolitano told the room of lobbyists.

She has started a major media campaign to highlight the number of people who will be affected and programs that will be lost if the legislature's current budget proposal is adopted and has released new information that highlights some of what she sees as the negative effects of the legislature's current budget.

Arizona Board of Regents President Jack Jewett, Arizona Students' Association lobbyist Maceo Brown and UA lobbyists Greg Fahey and Charlene Ledeta came to hear Napolitano's speech yesterday and hear her staff explain the legislature's potential budget cuts.

Brown, Ledet and Jewett said they didn't have any new plans for rallies at the capitol in the weeks leading up the budget proposal, but that they are meeting with lawmakers to ask that UA and other universities not be cut again.

Napolitano's publicity campaign is helpful to universities because it shows the impact of how budget cuts will affect people, Jewett said.

"I think it helps to put a human face on it."