A plan to tie the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School into the Oak Bluffs sewage treatment plant at a cost of $1.5 million has hit another road block in its bumpy journey.

The regional high school district committee voted on Monday night to rescind an earlier vote to float a bond for the project after it came to light that the school district had not properly notified the towns that they have a voice in the matter under state law.

Among other things, early this week Ronald H. Rappaport, who is town counsel to five of the six Vineyard towns (all but Tisbury), sent a letter to the towns notifying them that if they want to call a special town meeting to take a vote on the bond issue, they must do so by March 14.

Regional school districts are allowed to incur debt through bonding, but under state law towns who are members of the district have 60 days from the time the school district votes to adopt a bond issue to express their disapproval of the debt at a town meeting. If there is no town meeting, the bond issue is automatically approved. And it takes only one town to turn it down.

This information was missing from a letter sent to the towns from Vineyard schools superintendent Dr. James H. Weiss on Jan. 15, following the Jan. 14 vote of the school committee.

On Monday night Mr. Weiss recommended that the school committee vote to rescind its earlier vote. The committee plans to take the matter up again at its meeting in March; if the bond issue is voted again at that time, it will allow all Vineyard towns time to place the question on their annual town meeting warrants, if they choose.

Monday night’s decision is the latest in a series of knocks for the sewer proposal.

Uncertainty about the project’s estimated costs last fall led the school committee to remove it from the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

Then last month, the school committee renewed its pursuit of the project, approving spending for design work. Now the project has gone back to square one.

“It would be of interest to towns to rescind the vote and reschedule to coincide with an annual vote to avoid expense and hassle,” Mr. Weiss said at Monday’s meeting.

Tisbury selectman Tristan Israel attended the meeting to voice concern over the bonding issue. He was keen to avoid pushing forward with a March 4 special town meeting date, which the town had hurriedly arranged to accommodate the school’s original schedule.

At Monday’s meeting, Mr. Israel also aired protests about the state assessment formula, which was approved by the committee for the second year.

The motion to approve the statutory formula was proposed under protest by Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter 3rd and backed 4-3 by reluctant committee members, who expressed acute awareness that the state formula method for dividing regional school assessments is a divisive issue.

“Even the department of education admits it’s unfair,” Mr. Israel said of the formula. The town of Tisbury recently filed a lawsuit against the state department of education in an action which also names the town of Oak Bluffs, the acting commissioner of education Jeffrey Nallhaus and the high school.

Mr. Israel downplayed any perceived aggression.

“The lawsuit is not for the money and our beef is not with anyone but the department of education,” he said.

He added: “I feel there could have been a better effort to sort a compromise with a regional committee. We’re laymen and you deal with this all the time.”

For 51 years the Vineyard has divided its school assessments based on enrollment, as written in the original regional high school district agreement.

Last year, for the first time, high school assessments were divided among the towns under a state-imposed formula, after several months of confusion over the complexities of the formula and outrage at perceived inequities.

The state formula now is in a transition phase, working toward a system that will be close to the regional formula based principally on enrollment.

Under the formula, this year Tisbury will have to pay $110,000 and West Tisbury $140,000 more than they would have under the old enrollment-based formula, while Oak Bluffs will save more than $330,000.

Next year’s formula will mean Oak Bluffs will save $337,459 and Aquinnah will save $1,646. Other towns will pay more: Chilmark, $9,819, Edgartown, $74,712, Tisbury, $110,521 and West Tisbury, $144,052.

High school committee chairman Susan Parker argued in favor of voting for the formula, noting that while it is unpopular, it would be good to avoid a repeat of last year’s delays, when the budget was not signed off on until June. Further, she said no consensus is likely ahead of town meetings.

“I have polled people informally,” she said, “who said we might as well go ahead with it because with the other thing we’re just banging our heads against the wall.”

Mr. Manter, Ms. Parker, Susan Mercier and Judith O’Donaghue voted to stick with the formula, while Roxanne Ackerman, Maura Valley and John Bacheller voted no.

Despite fierce opposition, moves to break from the state formula and to move back to the regional agreement or towards an alternative solution has been stymied by the fact that a unanimous vote is required for any change.

A high school assessment committee, formed in the wake of bitter infighting and confusion leading up to last year’s budget, and made up of a selectman and financial committee member from each town, was hampered from the start by the absence of Edgartown representation. No consensus was reached by the committee, which will nevertheless meet again this coming Monday.

Chairman Jon Snyder was unsure of the assessment committee’s future in light of this week’s vote.

“They may keep meeting formally or informally. I don’t know if they’ll continue to try and find a solution though, when they don’t see one in sight,” he said.

The high school budget will now be presented under the statutory formula for approval at annual town meetings in April and May.