Among the 26 meetings he missed was one in which the group voted publicly to oppose school vouchers, which Katz supports.

Katz yesterday cited the travel demands of his job as a financial adviser and said he stayed in touch with board business while on the road.

Katz has told two different stories about how long he served on the board and why he resigned halfway through his six-year term.

Though Katz has run for both mayor and governor, he has never been elected to any office. His 1981-1984 stint as an appointed school board member - a job that Katz said he did not want - is the only public position he has ever held.

A review of his tenure on the school board offers a glimpse of both his leadership style and the issues he championed.

While on the board, Katz worked to reform the district's budget process and shrink a $223 million deficit. He proposed benching student athletes who didn't meet academic standards. He voted to close more than a dozen schools to save the cash-strapped district money.

Katz was an early supporter of Constance E. Clayton, named in 1982 as the first woman and first African American to be the district's superintendent. He also cast a personally difficult vote to open all-male Central High School - his beloved alma mater - to girls.

During his three years and three months on the nine-member board, Katz had the highest absentee rate. He missed 26 of 94 meetings, or 28 percent, more than double the meetings missed by the member with the next-highest rate.

In an interview yesterday, Katz defended his record, saying he kept in touch with board issues by phone.

"I traveled four nights a week. I could plan to be at the school board on Monday, and then on Friday afternoon get a call telling me I had to be in Orlando, and off I went. There was nothing I could do about it. I told the mayor about it before I was appointed," Katz explained.

"I'm going to take heat for it now, but the fact of the matter is: If you're going to get people in unpaid positions to participate in the affairs of the city, they're going to have to try to be able to work out those commitments with their private lives."

Katz's last board meeting was Nov. 19, 1984, despite a campaign biography that says he served through 1985. The biography makes no mention of Katz stepping down three years before his term ended.

"That's a bio that has carried over from who knows when," said Katz's campaign manager, Bob Barnett. "I don't know that we went back to update it."

At the time of his resignation, Katz cited pressures and travel requirements from his paying job as a financial adviser to governments and professional sports teams. In the past year on the campaign trail, though, Katz has said he left because he and his wife planned to send their young daughter to private Hebrew school.

"The published reason at the time was business, but I had other reasons," Katz said. "I never wanted to say that I chose not to use the Philadelphia public schools. I didn't want to in any way suggest that there was something wrong with the public schools."

Ken Snyder, Street's campaign spokesman, is quick to compare Katz's short public record with Street's 19 years on City Council.

"Katz was a political appointee, and then he didn't even serve out the one term he was appointed to because he said he needed to spend more time making money," Snyder said. "That the one time he had an opportunity in government to implement something he believed in, he was truant."

"It begs the question: Will Sam Katz divest totally and completely from any business interest he has while he's mayor?" Snyder asked. "Or can we expect him to quit before his term is over, because he needs to pay more attention to his business interests?"

Katz was 31 and the president of Public Financial Management Inc. when he was appointed by then-Mayor Bill Green to the school board. Katz, then a Democrat, had supported Green's mayoral campaign and his previous run for the Senate. Katz didn't think the job would fit into his schedule but said Green assured him that he could have impact on the board.

The appointment was considered somewhat politically controversial. Katz's consulting firm had contracts with two major city agencies, Philadelphia Gas Works and the Hospital Authority of Philadelphia.

Katz and two other newcomers inherited an educational system with a $223 million deficit. Katz quickly established himself as a financial watchdog and became budget chairman.

"My marching orders were to focus on accountability," Katz recalled. "We watched every nickel. We did a lot of head butting."

After City Council refused to fund any of the school district's deficit in the fall of 1981, the board cut programs, laid off 3,500 teachers, and canceled a 10 percent raise and benefits package spelled out in a previous contract. The teachers, in turn, went on a 50-day strike.

Colleagues at the time recall Katz as dedicated to solving the district's financial woes, despite the absences.

"Sam was extraordinarily helpful in trying to figure out how we could avoid financial disaster," recalled former board president Herman Mattleman, a lawyer and Katz family friend.

Helen Oakes, who served with both men, cautioned against drawing too many conclusions about the candidate based on his school board tenure.

"It was a long time ago. The role of a school board member as a policy maker is very different than the role of a mayor as a leader," said Oakes, a board member from 1982 to 1989. "I don't think there's very much of a comparison to draw."

In 1982, Katz led a publicly unpopular effort to create minimum academic standards for student athletes. At the time, school principals were given discretion to set their own rules.

The public backlash was harsh, as students, parents and coaches argued that the notion was anti-sports and might have the unintended consequence of pushing marginal students away from school.

The rule that passed unanimously in 1983 requires students from fifth through 12th grades to maintain at least a C average to participate in sports and other after-school activities.

Perhaps no issue resonated as emotionally with the school board at the time as the battle over Central High School.

In 1982, three female students at Philadelphia High School for Girls sued the school district to gain admission to nearby all-male Central, one of the best public high schools in the nation and the alma mater of many of the city's male power elite.

Katz, a 1967 Central graduate, was torn. He cherished the unique environment he had flourished in at Central. But he also had two young children at the time - a boy and a girl - and said he could envision both attending the celebrated school.

In the end, Katz voted against appealing the order to open the school to girls. "It was the right decision," he says today.

By May 1984, the school district's financial problems had been tamed dramatically. For the first time in 18 years, the board adopted a balanced budget.

Irvin R. Davis, then the district's finance director, said Katz was intricately involved in a $50 million bond sale in 1982 that refinanced older, costlier bonds at a better rate that saved the district money.

"He was supportive and advising me in certain ways to structure that refunding bond," Davis recalled. "I had never sold that type of bond before."

Katz, however, abstained from voting when the bond sale came before the board in September 1982, citing business relationships with several of the investment firms that were to share the management fee.

In November 1984, Katz resigned from the school board. Despite leaving only halfway through his term, he signaled that his work was done.

"I was put on the school board by Mayor Green because of my background and involvement in finance, and frankly intended to stay only as long as it took to positively impact the financial status of the school district," he said at the time.