Cranston City Council Vice President Paula B. McFarland visits the construction site of the city’s new police station in 2006, when she ran unopposed for a fifth council term.

The Providence Journal / Frieda Squires

CRANSTON –– Forced out of office by term limits at the end of the year, City Council Vice President Paula B. McFarland says she is weighing a run for the School Committee.

McFarland, who is hosting a fundraiser next week, said she hopes to reshape a school district budget she characterized as often maligned as confusing and bloated.

“I really feel strongly that someone needs to take the bull by the horns,” said McFarland, a Democrat.

But if she wins a seat on the school board, McFarland said, she may not be there for long.

An occasionally sharp critic of Mayor Michael T. Napolitano, she said she is already considering a run for the city’s top office in 2010.

In an interview yesterday, she said she doesn’t believe in “the philosophy” espoused by the mayor, also a Democrat.

McFarland suggested the mayor was not being “honest and straightforward” when he proposed an election-year budget that avoids a tax increase but dips into the city’s reserves to the tune of $2.7 million.

If Napolitano’s 2008-09 budget passes, she said, the city will have to seek a large tax increase in the 2009-10 fiscal year, given the fiscal crisis facing the city and state.

McFarland, who backs a modest property tax hike for the year that begins July 1, also criticized the mayor for accepting campaign contributions from city employees.

Ernest J. Carlucci, the mayor’s director of administration, said Napolitano does not solicit the contributions and argued that employees have a “First Amendment right to donate.”

He also defended the mayor’s budget, arguing that the city must find ways to trim and restructure government, rather than seek more money from the taxpayers.

McFarland, who is caring for her mother, who has cancer, said she considered sitting out the elections this fall.

But she said a continuing concern about the direction of the city will probably keep her in the public arena.

And while she is leaning toward a School Committee race, she said she might test the limits of the city ordinance that requires council members to step aside after five consecutive two-year terms.

The council includes one member from each of the city’s six wards and three at-large members.

McFarland, 42, has represented Ward 3 for the past 10 years. And she says the term limits may not apply if she leaves her ward seat and runs for an at-large seat.

dscharfe@projo.com