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PHOENIX — Senate President-designate Bob Burns said Wednesday that the 2009 legislative session should begin with lawmakers working only on the state's fiscal crisis, with a hold placed on all other business until a new budget is approved.

The gravity of the budget situation — a $1.2 billion shortfall in the current $9.9 billion budget and a larger shortfall anticipated in the next budget — requires the Legislature's full attention, Burns said.

"It will help, I hope, to get people to focus on the budget more, and that's what we need to focus on," Burns said. "Do the budget and then start the clock running on a schedule of bill hearings."

The proposed front-loading of budget work with an embargo on all other legislation would be a major departure for lawmakers, affecting both what they do and when they do it during their annual session.

Lawmakers did not approve the current budget until late June, roughly 5 1/2 months after the session's start and just before the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.

Burns' House counterpart, Speaker-designate Kirk Adams of Mesa, later said he had not had time to consider Burns' proposal in depth but was open to considering it. "It does put a very strong focus on this budget crisis," Adams said.

Burns disclosed his intention during an interview with reporters as he discussed his appointment of Senate committee chairmen for the next two years.

In a choice with implications for how the Senate tackles the budget crisis, Burns picked another fiscal hard-liner, fellow Republican Russell Pearce of Mesa, to serve as the next appropriations chairman.

Burns and Pearce undoubtedly will push for bigger spending cuts than Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano can swallow. The lawmakers took stances on spending issues at odds with Napolitano in recent years, but sometimes saw Napolitano win enough backing from other lawmakers to get her way.

Burns said he appointed Pearce as appropriations chairman because of his expertise in the subject.

The new Senate chairmanships, as well as those announced Tuesday by Adams for House panels, take effect in January, when new and returning lawmakers begin two-year terms.

Barred by term limits from running for re-election to the House, Pearce was elected to an open Senate seat Nov. 4. He has been House Appropriations Committee chairman during the past six years.

Earlier Wednesday, Napolitano criticized the Legislature's past budgeting process — during the appropriations chairmanships of both Burns and Pearce — and said she hopes for changes.

"I think one of the problems over the last few years is that the appropriations process was never designated to a) take and collect information relevant to construction of the budget and b) prepare a budget that would be acceptable to the majority of either house, much less to me," she said.

"And so all it became was a huge delay process, and in the last couple years we ended up unfortunately negotiating at the end of the session among a few people," Napolitano added. "So you lose all the values of transparency that one would like to have on something as important as where you're spending your money. So I'm hopeful that gets corrected with the new Legislature."

Besides Pearce, other Republican senators and senators-elect who will serve as committee chairmen will include Barbara Leff of Paradise Valley, Commerce & Economic Development; John Huppenthal of Chandler, Education Accountability & Reform; Jim Waring of Phoenix, Finance; Jay Tibshraeny of Chandler, Government Institutions; and Carolyn Allen of Scottsdale, Healthcare and Medical Liability Reform.

Others are John Nelson of Litchfield Park, Natural Resources, Infrastructure and Public Debt; Jonathan Paton of Tucson, Judiciary; Jack Harper of Surprise, Veterans & Military Affairs; Ron Gould of Lake Havasu City, Retirement and Rural Development; Linda Gray of Glendale, Public Safety & Human Services; and Burns, Rules.

Burns' announcement said he will be the fourth Senate president in the past four decades to simultaneously serve as Rules Committee chairman. That committee screens bills already reviewed by other committees before they go to the full Senate.

"I need to keep a close watch on what's going on," Burns said.