Aquinnah voters will be asked to decide whether the town should pay its share of $1.5 million in repairs to the West Tisbury School at a special town meeting planned for later this month or early July.

Selectmen decided Tuesday to call the special town meeting.

The up-Island regional school district, which serves Aquinnah, Chilmark and West Tisbury, was authorized by the district school committee at its May meeting to borrow the $1.5 million. Because the borrowing will be done through the school district, the towns are allowed but not required to hold a special town meeting to approve or reject the borrowing. West Tisbury will foot 80 per cent of the bill, and Chilmark and Aquinnah will split the remaining 20 per cent, about $300,000.

Work is set to begin June 21. The project began last year as window replacement but soon grew to much more extensive work when rot and other problems were discovered.

If no action to the contrary is taken by July 10, the borrowing is automatically approved.

“This is a huge amount of money that will have an impact on future budgets,” Aquinnah town administrator Adam Wilson told the selectmen on Tuesday.

Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss said this week he hopes both Aquinnah and Chilmark will approve their share of the debt.

“We’ll see what happens,” Mr. Weiss said.

Chilmark selectmen discussed briefly whether to call a special town meeting for the borrowing issue, but said they likely would not. West Tisbury selectman Richard Knabel said yesterday that his board has no plan to call a special town meeting on the matter.

The regional school committee also voted in May to award a contract to Builder Systems Inc. of Auburn, with Michael Josefek of Architectural Consulting Group in New Bedford as project manager. Construction is expected to be completed before the fall term. Mr. Weiss said the district is already in the process of borrowing the money.