Gov. Gray Davis on Saturday signed a $99.1 billion budget, 33 days late and after clashing for months with members of both main political parties over California's worst-ever budget crisis.

"The deed is done," said a smiling Davis as he affixed his name to a budget that contains heavy concessions to legislators and schools and lacks many of the components he once demanded.

The budget slices into higher education and health care and makes cuts to virtually every government department while borrowing heavily to erase most of an unprecedented two-year, $38.2 billion deficit.

The spending plan relies on tripling the vehicle license fee and increases an array of other fees, but it does not include other tax increases sought by Democrats.

Davis barely used his power to veto specific line items -- cutting less than $1 million in largely bureaucratic items.

But now that he has signed a budget that glues California's broken bank account together, at least for now, Davis will shift his attention to his own political survival in an Oct. 7 election to attempt to remove him from office.

Today, Davis is scheduled to head to Chicago to court national labor leaders whom he hopes will assist him in his fight. On Monday, he is expected to meet privately with the executive council of the AFL-CIO, which also will host a forum for Democratic presidential candidates later in the week. The labor federation represents 13 million unionized workers across the country.

Even the budget signing did not come without some of the trappings of a stump speech.

"The Republicans drew an ideological line in the sand," Davis said, borrowing from an emerging theme in his anti-recall strategy. "Their goal was simple, to create a conservative agenda in California."

He stood flanked by some of his longtime supporters, including union leaders and education and law enforcement officials and, before signing the spending plan, seemed to lay out his campaign pledges.

"I promise each and every one of you that every day for the rest of my 3 1/2 years," Davis said, "I will fight to make schools better, protect the environment and try to provide the people of this state with the security that they need."

Davis blamed a slumping national economy and what he called an "ideological straightjacket" from Republicans in bemoaning the budget he signed.

The budget lacks significant changes to California's tax structure -- something Davis in January said he would demand. And it leaves the state facing $8 billion in red ink in the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2004.

"This budget offers no reason for celebration," Davis said. "But I'm going to sign this budget nonetheless because the cost of not signing it is too high."

Some lawmakers criticized the plan for cutting too deeply into important programs. Others blasted its borrowing and the vehicle license fee increase.

At least one Wall Street financial firm slammed the budget for relying too heavily on one-time fixes and failing to remedy the structural problems that led to California's massive deficit.

The plan is built on borrowing.

It is anchored by the unprecedented sale of $10.7 billion in deficit bonds, which will be repaid over a half-decade. A complicated tax swap will enable the state to dedicate revenue to repaying the bonds without raising taxes. The plan also borrows to pay state pensions and takes out loans secured by settlement payments from cigarette makers.

The spending plan relies on nearly $11 billion in cuts and other money-saving measures including a roughly $900 million reduction to the University of California and California State University systems, resulting in hefty tuition increases.

Community college fees also will rise from $11 to $18 per credit.

The budget assumes $1.1 billion in reductions to the state work force -- equal to a 10 percent cut in state employees' salaries. State personnel officials are in the midst of renegotiating government worker contracts, but the budget cuts could, in a worst-case-scenario, result in the elimination of 16,000 positions.

The budget spares K-12 schools from devastating cuts and will result in the state spending about $6,887 per pupil -- a 4 percent rise in the amount spent last fiscal year after a series of midyear cuts.

The plan also relies on some new streams of cash, including the tripling of the vehicle license fee as of Oct. 1, an expected $680 million in Indian gambling proceeds from renegotiating with tribes, and an expected $2.2 billion infusion of new federal funds.

In health programs, the budget signed by Davis abandons some deep cuts that the governor and others sought. But some reductions remain -- such as requiring Medi-Cal recipients to reapply twice a year instead of once -- to weed out those who lose their eligibility and those who don't bother to reapply.

Saturday's budget signing came after a monthlong standoff in the Legislature over raising taxes to eliminate the deficit.

Davis and other Democrats said early this year that they would insist upon tax increases to prevent steep cuts to schools and aid for the poor. Republicans, however, banded together against tax increases and refused to supply the total of eight GOP votes needed to pass a budget by the required two-thirds margin in each legislative house.

Davis said the political dynamics dictated the budget plan.

"In January I proposed a budget that was balanced. It had a tough plan for cuts, taxes and structural reform," Davis said. "Unfortunately, neither political party would embrace it."

Meanwhile, despite a nationwide crunch that left most states slicing their budgets and raising taxes, Standard and Poor's downgraded California's credit to near junk bond status.

Ultimately, the Senate hashed out a final deal, then tossed it to the Assembly, which passed it only after Speaker Herb Wesson locked lawmakers in the Capitol for a 29-hour overnight session.

Davis said he will spend the remainder of the legislative session pressing the Legislature to make sweeping changes to the state's workers' compensation system and to restructure the budget process to smooth out the volatile boom-and-bust cycle.