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The Goodyear Republican noted that GOP lawmakers have prepared their own plan for balancing the budget. He said that's exactly what the Democratic governor demanded when she walked away from talks a month ago.

And he said the GOP planÌý—Ìýapproved Wednesday by the Republican-controlled House on a party-line vote — even includes some of the things Hobbs wanted before she broke off talks, such as money for child care.

"We've got a majority of this chamber agreeing on a budget,'' Montenegro told Capitol Media Services. "We're waiting for her to pick up the phone, email us, text us. She's welcome to show up here.''

Gubernatorial press aide Christian Slater said the speaker shouldn't sit by his phoneÌý— at least not now.

"The governor's office received that budget two days ago,'' he said.

In the meantime, Slater said, aides to the governor are "examining the budget in detail.''

But as to what Hobbs does next, he saidÌýthere's more involvedÌýthan just the numbers in the GOP plan. It's how Republican lawmakers now proceed.

"We are ... monitoring their actions to determine if they are serious about engaging in good-faith, bipartisan negotiations rather than playing political games,'' Slater said.

Tucson Democratic Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, the assistant House minority leader, questioned why it should be up to Hobbs to make the next move and reach out to Montenegro.

"The last time I looked, she's the governor. He's the speaker of the House that took over 100 days to have a budget,'' she said, referring to the time between Hobbs releasing her $18.7 billion proposal in January and the $17.9 billion plan Republicans in the legislative majority unveiled earlier this week. "`Maybe he needs to call her," Gutierrez said.Ìý

Montenegro, however, said that's not the way he reads the situation.

"She was the one that walked away five weeks ago,'' he said. "She could have called me yesterday. We're here, we're waiting, it's incumbent upon her to show some leadership.''

With no communication from the governor since the plan was unveiled Monday, House Republicans moved ahead Wednesday, voting to adopt their budgetÌý— with Democrats objecting to multiple provisions they say short-change needed services and programs.

Much of the spending dispute is over the fact that Republicans, unwilling to accept the tax hikes and other proposals by Hobbs to boost state revenues, are proposing to spend less. That includes $99 million in across-the-board cuts of 5% for most state agencies, with universities among the hardest hit.

Part of the reason Republicans have less to spend is they have built in some business tax breaks that mirror the changes made by Congress last year in HR 1, including allowing businesses to write off the cost of certain expenses.

But the dispute over what and who to taxÌý— and whether there is money for other programsÌý— is more complex than that.

Hobbs, in her own budget proposal, said there's a simple way to save more than $38 million a year to use for other priorities: end the tax breaks now provided for new data centers. She also asked lawmakers to impose new water use fees on the growing industry.

"It's time we make the booming data center industry work for the people of our state, rather than the other way around,'' she said in January.

But while the GOP plan does eliminate various tax breaks for "green new deal'' goals, such as installing solar energy devices, it leaves the data center breaks untouched.

"Data centers first, affordable colleges last,'' complained House Minority Leader Oscar De Los Santos, a Laveen Democrat.

Phoenix Republican Rep. Matt Gress, who was instrumental in crafting the GOP plan, said if Hobbs wants to eliminate tax breaks for data centers she "should come back to the table and start negotiating with us.'' He argued that if House Democrats were really interested, they should have proposed amendments to the proposed budget when it was being debated on Wednesday.

But Gutierrez said proposing amendments to the Republican plan would have been a waste of time.

"This is not a real budget,'' she said. "It wasn't negotiated with us or the governor. If they want to use this as a starting point for real negotiations we will bring those things back.''

The Senate is not expected to take up the GOP plan until next week.