Governor Spitzer’s push to give all of the state’s 4-year-olds a free education has won him praise, but the program is hitting a snag: $88 million of the funding is sitting fallow.

The money is part of New York’s education budget, and it will remain there unless action is taken, an event school districts and advocates say is unlikely to happen.

In New York City, $25 million of the $249 million sent by the state this year for pre-kindergarten is not being spent, state school officials said. The overall deficit statewide is even greater: $350 million has been spent of the $438 million allocated.

Many districts, including more than 70 on Long Island, appear not to be spending any of their allocated funds at all, an early-education advocate who is monitoring the area’s use of the program, Dana Friedman, said.

Ms. Friedman said she was surprised by the low participation rates.

“When you see big money like pre-K coming down, and so much of it being turned back, you’ve gotta say, ‘Whoa. What are we doing here?'” she said.

School districts and advocates say a major problem is red tape. The law that ushered in the historic expenditure on pre-kindergarten — the first major increase in the state in many years — also drafted many conditions limiting how the money could be spent.

State funds can finance only half a day of pre-kindergarten, for instance, or just two-and-a-half hours for each 4-year-old. The law also dictates exactly how much each district can spend on each child, and prevents school districts from using the money to cover basic costs such as transportation and building space.

The result, school districts and advocates said, is that finding classrooms and 4-year-olds to fill them has been a major struggle.

“The efforts to expand are extremely challenging,” Mayor Bloomberg’s family services coordinator, Jennifer Jones Austin, said. “We’ve done a lot, and we’re proud of the expansion. But until there is flexibility, we’re hard-pressed to be able to do all that we want to do.”

Friday is the deadline for signing up 4-year-olds in New York City, so Ms. Austin said she has no final numbers on how many children have benefited from the extra $61 million.

Several advocacy groups said they estimate 10,000 more children are enrolled in pre-kindergarten this year than last, a boost that would push total enrollment to 58,000 — or not so far from the city’s target of 75,000 children.

Last June, the Citizens’ Committee for Children estimated the number at just 6,000, and in a letter, implored the city schools chancellor, Joel Klein, to make more of an effort to use the new funding for pre-kindergarten.

Yesterday, citing the 10,000 number, the group’s executive director, Jennifer March-Joly, said the city has done an exemplary job of enrolling 4-year-olds.

“In a three-month period, to have 10,000 more kids in universal pre-K is pretty incredible,” Ms. March-Joly said.

Betty Holcomb, the policy director at a city-based child care agency, Child Care Inc., praised the legislation for bringing into the program 135 school districts that had never offered pre-kindergarten. “That’s not small potatoes,” she said.

Advocates said there is still a long way to go.

Child Care Inc.’s executive director, Nancy Kolben, said the major problem is a mismatch between goals and resources: The legislation asks districts to expand free education to all 4-year-olds, but it doesn’t give them the resources to do it.

“There’s no money for startup; no money for any investment in facilities; no money specifically targeted to recruitment and outreach, no money for workforce,” she said. “This is a program that doesn’t have investment in the things that will help you expand.”

New legislation would have to win the approval of Mr. Spitzer and lawmakers in Albany.

A spokesman for the state education department, Tom Dunn, said the Board of Regents, which oversees state education, supports at least two changes: moving to a full day of pre-kindergarten, rather than half, expanding funding for the program to $539 million.