CRANSTON –– The School Committee voted late Tuesday night to sue the city for $4.9 million in additional education aid, setting the stage for a costly, bruising legal battle.

The committee became the second in the state this year, after the West Warwick board, to authorize a lawsuit seeking more cash from a local municipality in what is known as a Caruolo action.

Michael A. Traficante, chairman of the School Committee, said he is not looking forward to a courtroom clash with City Hall.

“I think it’s a difficult thing for the [City] Council, the School Committee and for the city,” he said. “I’m sure the taxpayers are not going to be pleased.”

The school district is projecting $250,000 in legal and consulting fees should the case go to trial.

And the number will swell when the city’s legal expenses for defending against the suit are factored into the equation.

But even as Traficante fretted over the financial and political costs of legal action –– designed to win more funds for the fiscal year that ends June 30 –– he held out hope for a last-minute out-of-court settlement.

The City Council, which heard a presentation on the schools’ fiscal woes Tuesday night, is scheduled to meet Saturday morning to discuss the situation.

Still, council members seem cool to the idea of raising property taxes or dipping into the city’s cash reserves to fund a settlement.

And they cannot take the lead anyhow, because the City Charter requires the mayor to recommend any budget alterations.

Mayor Michael T. Napolitano, facing reelection this fall, has emphasized that he is opposed to a tax hike.

“People are losing their homes, they’re losing their jobs,” he said yesterday, adding later, “a tax increase is not in my vocabulary right now.”

His finance director, Corsino Delgado, has suggested the city could sustain a one-time withdrawal from the city’s reserves.

But even that move would be fraught with political risk.

Former Mayor John O’Leary faced heavy criticism in the early part of the decade when he raided the city’s reserves in the midst of a financial slide that left Cranston in junk-bond status.

The difficult choices facing the Napolitano administration have been taking shape for some time now.

Talk of a Caruolo action has been swirling since the beginning of the fiscal year, when school officials said they could not run the schools with the $125.3 million they got from federal, state and local sources.

The school district has maintained, for months, that it would need something on the order of $4 million more from the city to meet its obligations.

But city officials have long speculated that the school district would be willing to settle for something closer to $2 million in the end.

That speculation, it now seems, was faulty.

School Committee members suggested yesterday that there is little wiggle room.

The school district faces very real bills that must be paid, they said.

“Two million, three million, frankly, will not do it,” said School Committee member Frank S. Lombardi.

Committee member Andrea M. Iannazzi pegged the district’s “drop-dead,” low-end figure at $4.4 million.

That kind of demand puts the city in a difficult situation in tight times.

“We’re in a very, very critical state,” said Aram G. Garabedian, the City Council president, warning that the city’s bond rating could plummet if the administration is forced to mine the reserves to fund education.

The problem does not end with the current fiscal year, after all.

The school district is projecting a $7.4 million shortfall next year.

And unless it gets the cash, School Committee members say, it will be forced to cut popular programs such as middle school sports and enrichment programs for gifted students.

They could also require more students to walk to school in a bid to save on transportation costs.

But the focus, for now, is on the current fiscal year and the looming Caruolo action.

Council Vice President Paula B. McFarland said the council would probably approve a resolution on Saturday asking that the mayor recommend a course of action within five business days.

The mayor could reject the school district’s claim and pave the way for a courtroom battle or identify funds for a prospective settlement.

Traficante said the school district might be able to wait a few days, while the mayor prepares his recommendation, before filing the Caruolo lawsuit in Superior Court.

But with the end of the fiscal year rapidly approaching and the schools set to run out of money, he said, the district cannot wait long.

dscharfe@projo.com