With California facing a frenzied recall election against its governor and the crippling erosion of its credit rating, the state Senate on Sunday night broke through a 27-day impasse to approve a compromise spending plan for the fiscal year that began July 1.

The budget largely protects schools, contains roughly $11 billion in spending cuts and an array of new fees, but avoids the tax increases Democrats sought and relies heavily on borrowing to snuff out the state's $38 billion-plus deficit.

The 27-10 vote -- with the support of five Republicans -- barely achieved the necessary two-thirds margin of approval.

"There's something in here for almost everybody to hate," said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, the Legislature's top Democrat who crafted the plan with his GOP counterpart, Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte. "This is not a budget to be proud of, except the people of this state expect a budget to be passed, they expect bills to be paid, and this does that."

The plan -- which Burton and Brulte each called "the best we can do" -- will be shipped to the Assembly for approval before being sent to Gov. Gray Davis for his signature.

Davis issued a statement praising the Senate for approving a budget plan and urging the Assembly to do the same quickly. Last year, California's Legislature sent Davis the state's latest budget in recorded history at the end of August.

"The consequences of a late budget are more costly than ever before," Davis said.

Last week's breakthrough in the monthlong standoff didn't emerge until Standard & Poor's Corp. dropped California's rating three notches, to its lowest point ever.

Now, finance officials hope that a budget deal in the Senate -- and the prospect that the Assembly might soon follow suit -- will protect California from further downgrades from other major credit rating firms.

"It's about time to get on with the show," said Sen. Bruce McPherson, R-Santa Cruz, one of the five Republicans who voted for the plan. The other four were Brulte, Roy Ashburn of Bakersfield, Ross Johnson of Irvine and Pete Knight of Palmdale.

The deal also came as budget and other policy discussions were eclipsed by the effort to recall the Democratic governor, who has been heavily criticized for his handling of the state's fiscal woes.

Senators arrived in Sacramento Sunday for a dinnertime session and approved the plan after just 30 minutes of public discussion.

The overdue $100 billion spending plan is anchored by billions of dollars in borrowing, including $10.7 billion in bonds to finance the shortfall California had accumulated up to the end of last fiscal year.

The Senate budget also relies on $2.2 billion in new federal funds designed to repay states for anti-terrorism and security costs, and it expects a second sale of bonds that will be backed by the expected revenues from a 1998 settlement among states and cigarette makers.

And while it spares K-12 education from devastating cuts, the plan cuts state funding to universities by about 1.6 percent -- much of which is expected to be absorbed by students through tuition hikes -- and would raise student fees at community colleges from $11 per unit to $18 per unit.

The proposed budget makes about $380 million in reductions to state-subsidized child care programs.

It also makes reductions in the state's health care services -- including a 5 percent rate reduction for doctors, pharmacies and managed-care plans that provide Medi-Cal services.

In the state Senate on Sunday night, neither the ruling Democrats nor the minority-party Republicans claimed victory, and each said they had made concessions that were unavoidable because of the severity of the budget deficit.

Democrats said they were "holding their noses" and voting for what they called a Republican plan that lacked much-needed tax hikes and cut deeply into health care and other services.

Republicans won a key battle in their vow to block votes for an array of tax increases that had been proposed.

"We were able to kill the tax increases the governor proposed," Brulte said.

But the GOP abandoned its fight to keep alive a tax credit for manufacturers and allowed a slate of new and increased fees. The fees range from boosts in costs for fishing and hunting licenses to higher weight fees for commercial trucks.

Republicans also supported a budget that relies on the nearly $4 billion a year in revenues that the state will gain from the politically unpopular increase in the state's vehicle license fee, which is scheduled to take effect in October.

The compromise that was announced late last week was shaped during hours of meetings between Burton and Brulte and the finance experts on their staffs.

Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Simi Valley, called the compromise "a rotting porch just waiting to collapse" and said it relies on what he calls the illegal rise in the car tax. McClintock and others have launched a legal challenge against the fee hike.

"It does require tax increases," McClintock said of the budget.