WEST WARWICK — The community’s public school students will be back in the classrooms before the $1.4-million lawsuit filed by the School Department against the town goes to trial.

The opposing lawyers have agreed to postpone the start of the Superior Court trial in the lawsuit — a so-called Caruolo action — to allow the Town Council’s newly hired accounting experts to get up to speed with the case. Originally set to begin July 21, the trial is now tentatively scheduled to open in October.

“If we did not get the continuance because of the issue of experts,” Town Solicitor Timothy A. Williamson said, “I felt the town would be facing irreparable harm because [the schools] would get to go to the case with experts and we would go to the case without the experts. It’s not fair or just.”

Last week, the Town Council hired Parmelee, Poirier and Associates — which for years has conducted the town’s annual independent audit — to help prepare its defense against the schools’ lawsuit seeking $1.4 million more in operating money for the fiscal year that ended June 30. The consultants, who have worked on Caruolo cases before, said they would need at least three months to review documents and prepare a response.

Yesterday, Williamson submitted a stipulation to Judge Edwin J. Gale notifying him that the school board’s lawyer, David Lussier, would not object to the continuance Williamson was seeking. Lussier had vowed to fight the request, but he said last night that the delay would have no adverse effect on the School Department or its case, and that fighting the continuance could actually hurt the district should the case be appealed to a higher court.

“If a case is down for trial and a party has a legitimate reason to continue it,” Lussier said, “if the court said no to that and it puts the town at a disadvantage, that could be issue of reversal at the Supreme Court and we don’t need to get into that. We’re going to keep it all clean and keep the record clean. And it’s the right thing to do.”

The School Department filed the suit in April, after struggling to cut expenses and hiring B&E Consulting to determine how much more money the district would need from the town to finish out the fiscal year. That amount — the so-called “Caruolo number” — is what is being sought in the lawsuit.

On May 27, the schools’ consultants met with the Town Council to explain the calculations and told officials that when the fiscal year ended on June 30 they would provide updated figures to the town. The council unanimously voted late last month to defend itself against the lawsuit.

Williamson complained over the last week that the town had received no new numbers from the consultants or the district, despite the department’s books being closed for the year. Since then, Williamson said yesterday, Michael Petrarca, the schools’ director of administration, advised that he would prepare the necessary documents with the final number and provide it to the town within days.

Once the town receives that document, Parmelee, Poirier will get to work, Williamson said.

The lawyers will meet with Judge Gale on Monday, Lussier said, to set a final date for the trial.

tbuford@projo.com