CRANSTON –– School district consultants pushed the City Council to approve some $4.7 million in additional education aid last night in a last-ditch effort to win a voluntary surrender of the cash and avert a lawsuit over the money.

But as the meeting stretched into the night, the council seemed less than enthusiastic about dipping into the city’s reserves or raising taxes to fund the request, which would apply to the current, waning fiscal year.

And School Committee members, scheduled to meet immediately after the council gathering to vote on a lawsuit, suggested they were leaning toward legal action.

“They don’t seem too receptive” to the last-minute call for a settlement, said School Committee member Andrea M. Iannazzi, referring to the council.

If the committee voted to sue the city in what is known as a Caruolo action, the Cranston public schools would become the second district in the state, after West Warwick, to go that route this year.

School officials have said they are not looking forward to a legal fight.

But they have suggested they have little choice with the district set to run out of money before the fiscal year ends, on June 30.

Indeed, the schools have been pressing for more local funds for months, arguing that the $125.3 million they got from federal, state and local sources this year would not be enough to meet expenses.

The fight for more dollars in the current fiscal year is just one of two fronts in a broader fiscal war between the schools and city government.

School officials are also leaning on the City Council to add to the $1 million bump in local education aid Mayor Michael T. Napolitano has proposed for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

If the mayor’s budget passes, they say, the schools will face a $7.4 million shortfall next year that would require heavy cuts.

School Committee members say they may have to cut middle school sports, a strings music program for elementary school students and enrichment for gifted students.

They say they might also require more students to walk to school in a bid to cut down on transportation costs.

But closing the $7.4-million gap, and avoiding those cuts, would be no easy task.

Some council members, including Jeffrey P. Barone and Vice President Paula B. McFarland, have floated the idea of a modest property tax hike to fill some of the budget hole.

But an increase could be a tough sell in an election year. And Napolitano, for his part, has made it clear that he opposes a tax jump.

As the debate on the new budget has unfolded, city and school officials have also focused on talk of a Caruolo action in the current fiscal year.

State law allows school committees to sue municipalities if they cannot “adequately run the schools” without additional money.

The Cranston schools pressed just such a case in September 2003, pursuing $3.2 million more in aid.

But Superior Court Judge Daniel Procaccini rejected the lawsuit, writing that the schools had “fallen woefully short” of making their case.

Officials, eager to avoid another defeat, have hired the city’s two star witnesses in the last case –– former West Warwick School Supt. Thomas Sweeney and schools finance expert Walter Edge.

Last night, the two made the school district’s presentation before the council, providing what amounted to a preview of the careful, line-by-line financial analysis they would provide in a court action.

If the district prevails in any lawsuit, the cash-strapped city administration will have to make some difficult choices about paying out the award, which could swell to $4.9 million when legal expenses are included.

The city has already raised taxes by nearly the maximum allowed under state law for the current fiscal year.

A supplemental tax, which would require state approval, is sure to irk the public –– a particular concern with elections approaching in November.

But the alternative, dipping into the city’s reserve, carries its own risks.

In the early part of the decade, then Mayor John O’Leary endured withering criticism for raiding the surplus in the midst of a major fiscal slide that left the city in junk-bond status.

Napolitano administration officials, while mindful of the O’Leary history, say a city projecting a $20-million reserve by the end of the fiscal year could sustain a one-time withdrawal if needed.

dscharfe@projo.com