WASHINGTON -- In the rush to hire airport screeners after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the newly formed Transportation Security Administration spent as much as $143,432 per screener on recruitment in Topeka, Kan., according to a report released yesterday.

The TSA hired a company, NCS Pearson, to recruit screeners soon after Congress ordered it to replace private airport screeners with a government work force by Nov. 19, 2002.

Lawmakers later criticized the TSA for its spending after they learned the recruiters worked out of lavish resort hotels with golf courses, pools and spas.

The new report, written by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general, concluded that the TSA didn't have the staff or organization needed to manage such a contract.

"As a result, TSA made critical decisions without the benefit of sound acquisition planning or adequate cost control," said the report by Inspector General Richard Skinner.

The agency replied that it now has 94 people to control and monitor costs. It also said it does a better job of keeping track of funds and is establishing a system of internal controls.

The inspector general acknowledged that those improvements "should help to prevent such circumstances from occurring in the future."

NCS Pearson ultimately assessed 129,000 candidates, more than nine times the number originally estimated, in 13 weeks, or less than half the time originally allotted, the report said. The cost rose from an initial estimate of $104 million to a final settlement of $741 million.

The price tag for the contract increased largely because of the TSA's requirements for the temporary assessment centers, the inspector general said.

Each center had to have plenty of space and high-speed telecommunications connections. It had to be available for weeks, and it had to be within a two-hour drive from the airports for which screeners were being recruited.

One site was the posh Wyndham Peaks Resort in Telluride, Colo., which ultimately cost the government $39,727 for each person hired. The inspector general said most other hotels in the area couldn't meet the TSA's criteria.