On Wednesday West Tisbury selectmen confronted the reality of what an unexpected $1.5 million in repairs needed for the West Tisbury School will do to an otherwise well-balanced town budget.

“This project is a serious challenge to our planning for the future here,” said selectman Richard Knabel at the board’s weekly meeting. Multimillion dollar plans to renovate the town library and relocate and build a new police station are already well underway. “The numbers we’re talking about here are extremely substantial,” Mr. Knabel said.

Appearing before the selectmen, Vineyard public school business administrator Amy Tierney ran through the litany of serious repairs needed for the ailing elementary school building.

“If you go into some of the classrooms you’ll see buckets put around,” she said. “Occasionally they’ve had to actually move the class somewhere else because the dripping is like Chinese water torture.”

The depth of the problems came to light during a feasibility study carried out this summer by Keenan and Kenny architects. Earlier this year the school district had set aside $250,000 for window repairs, but during the analysis it quickly became apparent that the building’s problems were far more critical.

Ms. Tierney said many of the problems stem from an unusual and highly complicated roof design as well as questionable construction practices, such as the installation of masonry windows without flashing in the wooden building, a decision that has led to widespread rot and leaks. Ms. Tierney said that most, if not all, of the building’s windows will need to be replaced, an undertaking that alone accounts for over $1 million worth of repairs. The area with the most severe leaks is under the clerestory windows of the school’s D wing, built in 1994 by J.K. Scanlan, Co. Inc. of Springfield, but Vineyard schools superintendant Dr. James H. Weiss, who also attended the meeting, said the problems were widespread.

“If you look at the big picture it is a wood structure building built on a slab with a roof structure that is as complex as any one you’ll ever see,” he said. Shaped like a backwards P, the building has four wings that were built by four contractors between 1973 and 1994. “It’s surprising it’s lasted as long as it did,” Mr. Weiss said.

The building’s problems do not end with its roof and windows. Other possible repairs include replacing insufficient gutters and downspouts as well as rotten doors and soffits.

To pay for the urgent repairs, Ms. Tierney offered two mechanisms: short-term (five-year maximum) and relatively low-interest, but high yearly principal pay-down bond anticipation notes issued by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, or longer-term (10 to 20-year), but higher interest, bonds. West Tisbury, which is responsible for funding 80 per cent of the Up-Island Regional School District budget, would see an annual assessment to pay for the repairs of over a quarter million dollars a year using the bond anticipation notes and between $83,200 and $128,000 in annual assessments for bonds under a 15-year term. The repairs would either be completed this summer or in phases over two summers.

The next steps for the town will include an evaluation of the new numbers and what they will mean for the town’s debt structure by West Tisbury treasurer Kathy Logue, followed by another meeting with the up-Island school district again in the next week or two.

Later in Wednesday’s meeting the police station siting committee presented its recommendation to the selectmen to relocate the police department to a new 4,000-square-foot facility at the site of the town public safety building in North Tisbury. Mr. Knabel took the recommendation in light of recent events and pressed the committee about whether the station could be scaled down.

“As you just heard during the previous item we’re looking at a very big bill the size of which was completely unexpected,” he said. “This is throwing a major monkey wrench into what we saw as capital projects here in town.”

Police chief and committee member Dan Rossi cited the deficiencies of his current outdated and undersized police station on Edgartown-West Tisbury Road in defending the size of the new proposed building,

“I personally think this square footage is ideal,” he said.

In light of the fiscal conundrum, Al DeVito reminded the selectmen of the town’s reputation for financial good standing in a letter announcing his resignation from the finance committee.

“I have mostly enjoyed the nine years I have been on the committee,” Mr. DeVito wrote. “Whatever frustrations I have experienced have not been in dealing with the town itself, as I believe that West Tisbury is the best managed town on the Island.”