Governor Spitzer is under pressure from city leaders to change the way millions of dollars in new state funds for city pre-kindergarten programs will be spent next year.

In a rare show of unity after weeks of attacks on Mayor Bloomberg’s overhaul of the city schools, City Council members, education advocates, and Chancellor Joel Klein are asking the governor to release millions of extra dollars he has proposed for half-day pre-kindergarten seats and allow the city to spend the money on full-day seats. If he doesn’t, Mr. Klein warned, some of the new money could go unused.

“There is so little demand for half-day programs that we will struggle to use the money the state is allocating to Pre-K,” he said in testimony at a City Council hearing Monday.

Some council members are in agreement with Mr. Klein.

“Give us the flexibility to use the money as we deem it appropriate, meaning for full-day, not half-day,” the chairman of the Education Committee, Robert Jackson, said. “The ideal situation is fullday, and that’s what we’re pushing for: the ideal situation.”

Mr. Spitzer has proposed $252 million for city pre-kindergarten programs this year, a $63 million increase over last year. There are now 12,610 full-day seats and a total of 47,794 pre-kindergarten seats in the city. The new state funds could add 20,000 half-day seats, according to education department calculations.

City officials say working parents much prefer full-day programs, and many experts say they produce better outcomes for children.

“I think they had a philosophy of getting more breadth than depth,” the president of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, an Albany-based public policy organization, Karen Schimke, said. “The research on full-day is really solid. While half-day is better than nothing, full-day is better for the kids.”

The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, was less critical of the governor, noting that the Assembly’s version of the budget remedied some of the complaints.

“I’ve always said that full-day pre-K is much more effective than half-day,” she said, adding that the city could use other state education dollars to pay for more full-day seats.

“The Spitzer administration is well aware of the concerns of educators around the state,” a spokesman for Mr. Spitzer, Brad Maione, said. “We’re going to work to address the concerns.”