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PHOENIX — In what is expected to be her final State of the State address, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano highlighted six years of personal accomplishments Monday and sprinkled her speech with a few proposals for new ideas.

She also touched on the state’s $1.5 billion budget shortfall, according to a prepared text, but urged lawmakers to approve her “balanced budget” proposal” and not “dim the bright future of this remarkable state.”

Most notably, Napolitano, likely to resign this month if confirmed as U.S. secretary of homeland security, proposed “reforms” to Arizona’s initiative and referendum process.

The plan presented Monday would basically make it easier for citizens to get things on the ballot and harder for state lawmakers.

Napolitano suggested lowering the signature requirement for a citizens initiative — currently, more than 150,000 to change state law and 230,000 to amend the Constitution.

She also told lawmakers to “crack down on signature fraud by increasing the number of signatures to be examined, banning payment by signature and registering paid circulators.”

And she suggested changing the current rules, which allow sponsors to name their causes — sometimes with misleading titles.

Napolitano hinted at one of her own political failures in outlining the recommendations: A transportation initiative failed to make it onto the 2008 ballot after many signatures were determined ineligible. It would have increased the state sales tax to pay for roads and mass transit.

“While it is incumbent on this Legislature to revisit transportation and state trust land reform, you must also consider reform of the initiative process itself,” she said.

Napolitano also suggested changes to the process that allows lawmakers to send measures to the ballot themselves, recommending a two-thirds vote rather than a simple majority.

That would have prevented numerous measures, including last year’s successful effort to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage, from going before voters. And the Legislature also used that power to essentially allow voters to override Napolitano over the years on immigration matters, like denying state benefits to illegal immigrants through the passage of Proposition 200 in 2004.

Napolitano recommended the Legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, adopt the budget proposal she will send to them this month, before she resigns.

Her previous budgets have relied on borrowing to weather the bad economy, while Republicans generally favored deeper cuts to the state budget.

“Budget deficits mean cuts, and cuts are hard,” Napolitano said. “As we tighten our belt, we must remember that this part of our call to serve means still caring for those less fortunate, and protecting services like education, foreclosure assistance, health care and shelter from abuse, neglect and domestic violence.”

As universities face a potential slice to their budget this year, Napolitano said the institutions “have already experienced budget cuts, and we need to avoid deeper cuts that impair their educational and economic missions.”

She proposed extending in-state tuition to every veteran in Arizona.

And she urged lawmakers to put in action a plan approved last year to provide construction money to the state’s three universities — which has been held up by Republican lawmakers because of the state’s budget shortfall.

“It is a good plan, we can afford it, and we should put it into action,” she told lawmakers.

With the failure of her transportation plan, Napolitano recommended to lawmakers that they resurrect her plan — one many Republicans looked at this raised eyebrows last year. And some Democrats, too, were critical of raising state sales tax during a recession.

“That citizen’s initiative proposal made sense — and it still makes sense,” Napolitano said, “both for our present because will will need jobs, and for the future, because we will need roads, highways, rail and transit to support our growth.”

As she prepares for her likely departure to the national stage, Napolitano called leaving “very difficult.”

“But I believe the post our new President has asked me to fill is critical to the safety of Arizonans and to all Americans,” she said. “... I trust that when I return home, I will find an Arizona that continued to build its long-term future — an Arizona that has realized even more of what it can be.”