Hartford - A plan was put in place Wednesday that attempts to tackle Connecticut's current $500 million deficit, with about two-and-a-half months left in a fiscal year that's been rocked by plummeting state revenues.

Just minutes after the deficit-cutting bill passed the Senate - in a rare unanimous vote on a budgetary matter - Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed it into law.

Now lawmakers must turn their attention to the fiscal year that begins July 1, which is estimated to be about $700 million in the red. Legislators had passed the two-year, $37.6 billion budget last September.

"It is not the end of our fiscal challenges as we pass this bill, but it is a milestone," said Senate President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn. The Democratic-controlled General Assembly and Rell, a Republican, have been at odds for longer than a year over how best to handle Connecticut's budget woes.

To cover this year's deficit, lawmakers and the governor are postponing a $100 million payment to the state employee retirement fund, counting on additional federal revenues, using nearly $239 million originally allocated from the state's Rainy Day fund for next year, siphoning nearly $97 million from various accounts and funds, and making nearly $90 million in spending cuts.

Wednesday's vote came less than three weeks after the Democratic-controlled Senate passed a deficit-cutting plan in the early morning hours, only to have Rell vow to veto the bill. Since that vote, Rell met with legislative leaders from both parties behind closed doors and attempted to reach this latest compromise.

"It does prove that we can solve problems, difficult as they may be," Williams said.

Republicans praised the deficit-cutting compromise for not raising taxes and for partially rolling back and reducing controversial increases for state park and camping fees and state licenses that kicked in on Oct. 1, 2009. For example, a state resident's fishing license will drop from $40 to $28 while a firearms permit drops from $28 to $19.

"I think it really is good that we work very well in a bipartisan fashion to reduce fees that will allow people to access the great outdoors," said Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield.

To pay for the rollback, lawmakers voted to increase various motor vehicle fines, some of which haven't been raised since the 1980s.

"While these fee increases were intended to help close the state's budget deficit, I and many others believed that they were too steep and fall too heavily on low, moderate and fixed-income people who enjoy fishing and hunting," said Sen. Donald DeFronzo, D-New Britain.

Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said lawmakers tried to reach a compromise that protects programs that help struggling residents. The Labor Department last month reported that state's jobless rate in February had reached 9.1 percent, its highest level since 1976.

Greater Waterbury had the highest rate at 13.4 percent, while the Danbury area's rate of 8.5 percent was the state's lowest.

Looney said lawmakers made the decision to protect programs that help children and the elderly, prevent home foreclosures, and promote job creation.

"Some of the early proposals that would have been most harsh, most draconian," he said, "were rejected."

Besides next fiscal year's deficit, the legislature's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis predicts Connecticut's General Fund, the spending account, will be in deficit $3.8 billion in 2012 and $3.7 billion in 2013.