ALBANY – The leader of one of the city’s most powerful labor unions ratcheted up her two-month attack on Mayor Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein yesterday, saying the two men have degraded teachers and shortchanged students with heavy-handed education reforms and stingy budget commitments.

At a breakfast meeting with legislators, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, withheld criticism of Governor Pataki and his education-spending plan for 2006. She opted instead to fault Mr. Bloomberg for resisting the use of city funds to cover a court mandated cash infusion to public schools over the next four years.

A court-appointed panel of special masters recommended in December that spending on New York City schools be more than $20 billion over the next five years to resolve a successful lawsuit by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. City and state officials have differed over who should cover the spending increases, with Mr. Pataki suggesting the city pay 40% and Mr. Bloomberg suggesting the state shoulder the entire amount.

As a first attempt at resolving the issue, Mr. Pataki earmarked $280 million in additional education spending for New York City next year in his executive budget proposal last month. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has said the figure “completely ignores the CFE ruling.” Mr. Bloomberg has called it inadequate.

Yet Ms.Weingarten, amplifying criticisms she first leveled against the mayor in December, laid blame for sluggish action on the ruling squarely at his feet. In comments to union members and legislators, she suggested that while lawmakers in Albany appear willing to bargain, Mr. Bloomberg has remained intransigent.

“We’re trying to get the CFE case resolved,” Mr. Weingarten said. “The mayor isn’t.”

Union leaders anticipate that when annual spending on the city’s schools increases under the CFE ruling by billions of dollars, it will be easier to improve their compensation, as well as the atmosphere in the schools and the quality of public education.

Mr. Bloomberg defended his position on the CFE money yesterday, saying he has prosecuted an aggressive lobbying campaign for funds with state officials.

“I’ve been out there saying as much as I can, saying the city needs more education money,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “And I think that the court spoke and said that it’s up to the state Legislature to provide it. The speaker and the majority leader and the governor have to come together on a budget, and I would hope that they do that.”

The mayor also urged patience, in light of the fact that state Supreme Court Judge Leland DeGrasse has not yet issued an implementation plan following the panel’s recommendations.

“We’re still waiting for Judge DeGrasse to rule, and once he does that, the ball’s going to be in the Legislature and the governor’s court,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “And if they say, ‘city, we’re not going to stand up, you’re going to have to do it’, that would be a real problem for the city, and we have to do anything we can to fight it.”

A spokesman for the mayor, Robert Lawson, declined to comment on Ms. Weingarten’s charge that Mr. Bloomberg’s school reforms have caused teacher demoralization.

Relations between Mr. Bloomberg and the teachers union grew cold last fall when negotiations on a new contract for the union broke down and Ms. Weingarten said the mayor’s takeover of city schools had damaged teacher morale and caused chaos in classrooms.

The union president said yesterday that under the Bloomberg-Klein regime teachers are forced to conceal teaching materials from administrators, for fear they will get unsatisfactory ratings.

The mayor has refused the union’s request of 14% raises for UFT members over the next three years, and the union has balked at making concessions to the city over work rules. The teachers’ last contract expired May 31, 2003.

What union leaders, and the politicians who met with them yesterday, are discussing here is resolution of the CFE case.

Sidestepping the issue of city contributions, the Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, told union members that the state already has sufficient revenue channels in place to support increased funds for schools. He said the governor’s proposed expansion of video lottery terminals and the private conversion of the state-owned Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York, or HIP, would generate $8 billion in additional revenue.

Mr. Bruno closed off the possibility of raising taxes to cover education or other costs.

“I am sending a very clear message that we are not going to be raising taxes in this state,” Mr. Bruno, a Republican from Rensselaer County, said. “I just ticked off close to $8 billion in revenues. But we need the support of the Assembly.”

That is not likely. The Democrat controlled Assembly, led by Speaker Sheldon Silver, is strongly opposed to the use of the lottery terminals for education.

Addressing the union members, Mr. Silver, of Lower Manhattan, said the governor is “running away from his obligations” by “ignoring” the CFE case in his budget. He also criticized Mr. Bruno for suggesting that proceeds from the lottery terminals could cover education costs.

“It’s nice that Senator Bruno thinks we should be the gambling capital of the world,” Mr. Silver said. “I don’t think we should be the gambling capital of the world.”

Consistent with her previous statements on the matter, Ms. Weingarten remained agnostic on the question of the lottery terminals.

“I thought it was an interesting proposal,” she said, referring to Mr. Bruno’s solution. “But my goal here is to stop everyone from making excuses as to why they can’t fund CFE.”

Ms. Weingarten was at Albany to present her union’s legislative platform for the coming fiscal year to legislators. The union, which claims membership of more than 140,000, lists resolution of the CFE case as its chief priority for the coming year.

It is pushing for legislation that would ensure the right to collective bargaining. It also wants changes that extend pension eligibility after 25 years of service to more union members and guarantee pension rights to members with that level of experience.

The union’s legislative kickoff came one day before its board of delegates is expected to apply, for the first time, for two new charter schools in New York City.

In August the union hired the man responsible for implementing the city’s charter-school expansion efforts, Jonathan Gyurko, to direct the creation of its own charter schools. A union task force found that charter schools – essentially public schools that are run privately – would not have an adverse impact on unions.