Sacramento -- The California Assembly sent the governor a "balanced" budget for the 2003-04 spending year.

But the budget is packed with tricks, gimmicks and borrowing that mean the state's fiscal crisis is far from over.

The plan includes one-time savings, accounting changes and a $10.7 billion in deficit bonds, which is about 10 percent of state spending in the coming year.

Think of it as spending 10 percent more than total household income, taking out a home equity loan to cover the shortfall, and then saying your budget is balanced.

Then there are the accounting moves and fund shifts. For example, the budget changes the accounting method for Medi-Cal from accrual to cash for an estimated savings of $930 million. It also transfers $289 million from special- purpose transportation funds to the general fund to pay for basic services.

The problem is that the shifts can't be used again to sustain current spending levels.

In essence, observers say, the budget approved Tuesday is held together with bailing wire, the end product of a process left in tatters after years of shortsightedness and neglect.

As a result, the state is facing a minimum $7.9 billion deficit beginning July 1, 2004, the start of the next fiscal year.

It could be even greater because that number assumes tax revenue growth of 4.3 percent from personal income, sales, alcohol, estates, corporations and insurance. But total nonfarm personal income in California was expected to expand by less than half a percent during 2003, according to a widely watched UCLA economic forecast.

Without serious focus on comprehensive repair, the crisis will revisit California for years to come. Gov. Gray Davis said Tuesday he would appoint a blue-ribbon commission to study "structural reform." If the Legislature doesn't act on the recommendations this fall, he said, he may call a special session to tackle the problem.

Republicans are fond of pointing out that even during California's boom years, as tax revenues increased by 33 percent, spending on state services -- including education, social programs and others -- increased 36 percent. Then, when the good times were gone, legislators refused to deal with the revenue shortfall, passing a budget last year that made false assumptions and was out of balance from the moment it passed.

In the coming year, the state must once again go through the wrenching process of reducing spending even further and holding out hope that the economy will grow. There will also be an inevitable debate over raising taxes to offset the amount needed to be cut.

"I think we've really got to address the issue of structural reform, with state fiscal planning, with how we fund local government, and how the process works," said Joe Canciamilla, D-Pittsburg, a moderate Democrat who voted against the budget because he thought it did not go far enough to fix the imbalance between revenue and spending.

"This is not the way to make decisions in a thoughtful way on the state budget," Canciamilla said. "We need to take more time and see if the programs we use are effective."

Throughout a budget debate that began in December, when Davis announced mid- year spending cuts, there has been virtually no discussion of analyzing state spending to determine its effectiveness or efficiency. Rather, the focus has been on either raising taxes or making painful cuts.

No one in the Capitol believes the budget deficit could be eliminated through cutting bureaucracy, but no one knows how much could even be saved by lasering in on the way money is spent.

The one-time gimmicks helped save a lot this year. This spring, the federal government gave California $2.2 billion as part of a national "fiscal relief" program to help struggling states. That will not happen again.

The state will also float $1.9 billion in bonds to pay for its mandatory contribution to the state employee retirement system, rather than paying it out of cash. And there is also a plan to raise $2 billion in cash through a bond based on anticipated future revenues of tobacco litigation settlement money.

None of this provides much optimism for credit analysts, who recently cut California's debt rating three grades because of the lack of a budget, the political uncertainty created by the recall and the failure, still, to deal with the fundamental imbalance between state revenue and spending. Until that is dealt with, California will continue to receive a mediocre credit rating and pay higher interest rates on its debt as a result.

"We are looking for progress toward a structural balance," said Steven G. Zimmerman, the managing director of the Western region for Standard & Poor's. "I'm not hopeful there's going to be a lot of progress toward that, although we're looking forward to it."