With a backlog of hundreds of cases of alleged sex between teachers and students, it's inexplicable that Gov. Eliot Spitzer would fail to support an increase in the number of investigators trying to get to the truth.

The state Board of Regents had requested additional money to pay to have more teachers fingerprinted next year and for more staff to help its three full-time and two part-time staffers who investigate a growing number of reports of sexual misconduct by teachers.

A spokesman for Spitzer's office pointed out that it was going to be a difficult budget year and that most budget requests were being cut because of a $4.4 billion deficit and declining state revenues.

The administration says new high-tech scanners the state plans to purchase will allow background fingerprint checks to be done more efficiently and that the rejection of this particular budget item won't mean fewer investigations of teachers.

The problem is that simply holding the line on the number of investigations isn't good enough.

There was a 400 percent increase in the number of complaints against teachers in New York between 2001 and 2007, and the majority of those involved allegations of sexual relationships between teachers and students.

We certainly don't mean to suggest that all teachers are suspect #- the vast majority are honest professionals #- but the rising number of allegations is alarming and everything possible needs to be done to identify the teachers who are doing harm.

Not everything in the state budget can be cut for the sake of saving a few bucks.

Even in a tough budget year, New York should be doing more #- not less #- to help protect its schoolchildren.