With Term Limits Comes . . .

. . . a bad case of senioritis:

They grumble behind closed doors, sick of stewing inside, dreaming of freedom. They want to stop working, throw parties, cause trouble. And waiting for the days to end is killing them.

They are the 35 term-limited members of the City Council, and they’re as restive as high school seniors.

For now, they shuffle in and out of City Hall budget meetings, trying to play nice as they divvy up the city’s money. But when July 1 rolls around and the new budget takes effect, they can stop kissing up to the people who control the purse strings — and start raising money and raising hell to promote their own careers.

“It’ll get worse,” said one of the 35, who himself is trying to figure out his future. “With each day, with each event, with each budget, there’s less and less leverage that the leadership of the Council can use to hold it together.”

To hear some of them tell it, the Council is already falling apart. Ambitious pols who know what they want to run for in November 2009 need to get noticed now — which may be why some of them have been using dry budget hearings to attack the Bloomberg administration.

“I’ve never seen grandstanding like I’ve seen in the last few weeks,” said Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., who is mulling a run for Queens Borough President. “The Council will resemble a herd of cats after July.”