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PHOENIX — Gov. Janet Napolitano agreed to take home builders off the financial hook for paying for new roads in exchange for a $100,000 donation to a campaign to persuade voters to boost their own taxes.

The deal, outlined in a letter obtained by Capitol Media Services, resulted in the recrafting of the $42.6 billion transit improvement initiative shortly before it was filed Tuesday to remove a provision to raise at least some of the money from fees on new developments — fees that would be added to the cost of new homes.

Instead the final version of the initiative — the one being circulated for signatures — calls for the entire costs of new highways, widened roads and mass transit projects to be paid for with a 1-cent increase in the state sales tax, an increase of 18 percent from the current 5.6 cent state levy.

With the development fees gone, Connie Wilhelm, president of the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona, promised to provide $100,000 up front to help gather the more than 153,000 signatures that transit-tax backers need by July 3 to put the measure on the November ballot.

That, however, may just be the beginning: The letter from Wilhelm to the governor — crafted at the insistence of the governor, according to Dennis Burke, Napolitano's chief of staff — also commits the home builders to "engaging in further discussions regarding funding for the campaign" after the petitions are filed.

And the home builders also agreed not to oppose a second initiative sponsored by environmental groups to put 570,000 acres of state trust land forever off limits to development. Home builders not only opposed a similar initiative last year but even crafted their own alternative.

Spencer Kamps, lobbyist for the home builders group, defended the deal to put the financial burden on all residents.

"Everybody uses it," he said, referring to roads. And Kamps brushed aside a question of whether Arizona would need new roads and to widen existing ones if it were not for the new developments that are being constructed by his organization's members.

Kamps said the people moving to Arizona will also be paying sales taxes on the items they buy. He said charging both sales taxes and impact fees would amount to double taxation.

Jack Lunsford, a member of the TIME Coalition, which is pushing the ballot measure, said there were legitimate reasons to redraft the initiative to remove development fees.

He said there is a "cycle of home development" in Arizona, as shown by the current slump.

"So what happens to the revenue stream in terms of predictability?" he asked. By contrast, Lunsford said, it is easier to calculate how much a penny increase in the sales tax will generate.

Burke defended the deal between the governor and the home builders. "You do that with (legislative) bills," he said.

"Someone comes along and says, 'I can't support that unless you change this, this and this, and that's critical for my support,' " Burke said. "I'm not sure why it's viewed as secret or kind of nefarious."

And he said the fact the agreement was memorialized in a letter to the governor shows no one was trying to hide anything.

But the Governor's Office did not provide copies of the letter to the media until they were requested Friday, even though it was signed Tuesday, the day the initiative was filed.

Nor did the governor provide any details about the deal Wednesday when asked about the fairness of having the entire $42.6 billion burden put on the back of people who buy consumer items.

"It's not the kind of thing you put out in a press release," Burke said.

And he said the deal still leaves the door open for future tax on development for other transportation needs.

Burke also said the $100,000 was not a payoff by the home builders for the deal.

He said the home builders, in talks with the governor, promised to support the transit tax initiative if there were no fees on development.

Pressed by Napolitano for what that support meant, Burke said the home builders agreed to that $100,000 upfront donation and a promise of more later.

He said that $100,000 will help gather the necessary signatures.

Kamps, asked about the donation to the transit tax initiative, said, "I'm not going to comment." He also would not discuss why the home builders agreed not to oppose the trust land initiative, saying only "the letter (from Wilhelm) speaks for itself."

That trust land initiative is designed to protect 570,000 of the state's estimated 9.3 million acres of trust lands given to Arizona by the federal government when it became a state in 1912.

Current federal law and the state constitution require the state to sell or lease the property with most of the proceeds benefiting education.

This initiative would alter that to create exceptions for identified parcels around the state. A similar initiative failed narrowly in 2006 amid home builder opposition.