The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School committee this week postponed a critical vote regarding the planned school building project, out of concern that the agenda item could have been misleading to the public.

The decision deals with how Islanders will vote on funding for the high school project, recently estimated at between $220 million and $270 million with the state reimbursements and at $334 million without them.

The committee was set to make its ruling Monday night, but member Amy Houghton — who also chairs the all-Island school committee — argued for a postponement, saying the language of the agenda item was misleading to the public.

“I think this gives the impression that we’re going to talk about how towns are going to borrow money, and we’re not talking about that at all,” Ms. Houghton said.

While the voting decision was listed on Monday’s school committee agenda, it appeared third under the heading of “routine reports” and read “Vote to approve a method to ask Towns for the borrowing for the school building project, warrant articles or district wide election.”

Ms. Houghton found that language to be inexact, she told her fellow committee members.

“It is an important vote, and I think… it’s just unfortunately not worded properly,” she said.

A regional agreement ratified by all six towns in 2022 sets out how the project’s total costs will be shared among the municipalities, if voters approve the project next spring.

The school committee, however, has sole discretion on how the crucial vote will take place.

State law allows the committee to bypass the annual town meeting and election process and hold a single, district-wide election that would poll all Island voters on the same day, with a simple majority needed to pass the ballot measure.

Under the traditional town meeting and elections process, the Massachusetts School Building Authority requires all six towns to agree at the ballot box in order for the reimbursements to flow. 

A district-wide election has never been held on Martha’s Vineyard and is opposed by Islanders such as Rick Homans of Tisbury, who wrote the school committee asking it to follow the traditional meeting and election process. Mr. Homans headed the volunteer task force that recently selected Icon Architecture to develop a plan for consolidating Tisbury’s town offices at a single location.

“That’s small town democracy in action, as messy as it might be,” Mr. Homans wrote in an email dated Oct. 3.

The school committee agreed to postpone the decision on the voting method to its Nov. 3 meeting.

Regardless of how the vote is taken, each town will be responsible for financing its share of the total cost if the measure passes, which Mr. Homans said would be a hardship for Tisbury because of the 2022 shared-costs agreement.

“Under this scenario, Tisbury is paying $.65/$1,000 valuation, double or triple the increased rate being imposed on most other Island towns,” he wrote.

Also Monday, committee members voted unanimously to accept a grant of more than $49,000 from Island Grown Initiative to procure, install and operate an advanced, low-odor composting machine outside the school cafeteria.

Compost from the apparatus will be used by the high school’s horticulture program, principal Sean Mulvey said.