NEW YORK — While walking toward the entrance of P.S. 8, the Luis Belliard School on 167th Street in Washington Heights, Sarah Morgridge, a fierce advocate for more money for New York City schools, pointed out some crumbling concrete on a wall along a walkway.

Once inside the building, which opened only 10 years ago, she said a staircase just inside the main door is seldom used because it comes before the security-guard station, meaning the doors at the top have to be locked all the time.

In the vestibule immediately inside the door, there were two radiator covers. She said there were no radiators behind them.

"For those who say some money is wasted on New York City schools, there's some truth in that," she said.

Certainly, in terms of school construction, costs in the city dwarf those outside the city: about $300 per square foot, compared to an average of about $150 in the rest of the state, according to the state Education Department. That may sound like a lot, but it was worse even a year ago, when the average cost of new-school projects in New York City was $433 per square foot.

"Since then, we have begun to streamline and reorganize," said city Education Department spokeswoman Margie Feinberg.

Officials say higher land and labor costs, as well as problems building in congested areas, exacerbate the problem. Nevertheless, such spending disparities have given fuel to those who say that merely sending more money to urban schools doesn't mean the money will be well spent.

"People in Albany say sending money to New York City is like throwing it down a rathole," David Sealy, an advocate for more money for city schools, said at a recent conference. "The key to getting the money is a credible plan of accountability."

"We believe there are sufficient funds to provide high-quality education now,'' said Jason Brooks of the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability, a group that promotes charter schools. "We're already near the top for spending. It's just what we're spending money on that's the problem."

Some other facts cited by those who oppose sending more education aid to New York and other cities without stricter oversight:

• In Buffalo, a state panel that is overseeing the city's finances found that school janitors didn't have to account for $15 million in maintenance funds, and estimated that up to $5 million could be saved by closer monitoring of the funds. It also found millions more could be saved if the district used just one health-insurance carrier and eliminated some benefits for school workers and their families like payments for cosmetic surgery.

• In Rochester, as much as $6.3 million a year could be saved if the school district paid the same wages as city employees doing essentially the same job, according to a still-unreleased consultant's report commissioned by the city.

For example, the report said that while librarians hired by the city made $50,208 a year, the school district was paying workers doing similar jobs $65,500; the schools were paying clerk-typists $39,500, compared to $27,300 for comparable city workers. Barbara Jarzyniecki, a Rochester school spokeswoman, disputed those numbers, saying that the school-district salaries were lower than the report indicated and mostly in line with what the city pays. She said the district hadn't seen the consultant's report.

• Some see Rochester as a case study of how more spending doesn't necessarily lead to better results. In 1987, the city schools signed a new contract calling for raises of 40 percent in an effort to attract and keep better teachers and lift student performance. But 17 years later, the test scores of Rochester pupils are the worst of any big-city students.

"What we've obviously learned is that money alone will not solve all of the problems we have," said Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester teachers' union.

• While New York City is looking for more state money for schools, Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently mailed out $250 million worth of property-tax-rebate checks to city homeowners.

"That's seen by a lot of people as symbolic: They want the state of New York to come in and help them but they're not going to help themselves," said Assemblywoman Sandra Galef, D-Ossining. Paul Elliott, a spokesman for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said the rebate, made possible by a strengthening city economy, amounts to only one-eighth of the tax increase Bloomberg imposed shortly after he took office.

• The other large cities — Yonkers, Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse — have upped their contributions to local schools at a far lower rate than the rest of the state over the past decade.

Records show that they in aggregate hiked taxes for school purposes by only 15 percent in the last decade, well below the inflation rate of 25 percent, while aid from the state was rising rapidly, allowing the school budgets to almost double this year from a decade ago. In fact, this year Rochester, citing spending pressures from other areas and cuts in aid from the state, reduced local education spending by $7 million.

© 2004, Gannett News Service