OXFORD - SAD 17 towns will meet next month to get approval to incur local debt in order to use a $1.1 million in state money.

The money is from the state's Revolving Renovation Fund and will be used to address health, safety and air quality issues, Superintendent Mark Eastman said. SAD 17 got 20 percent of the grant money available statewide, he said.

"We can't do anything without a vote. We need a specific ballot question," he explained.

The district referendum will be held Sept. 9 with a public hearing at 7 p.m. Sept. 2 in the school board's meeting room at the administrative offices at Oxford Plaza on Route 26.

Eastman told school board members recently that although annual town meeting voters accepted the grant in June, the school's attorneys said they must approve a specific ballot question that lets school officials incur debt.

Although school officials debated waiting until next year when the question could be put on the annual town meeting ballot, Eastman said the feeling was that the project needed to move ahead.

Some School Committee members said they were worried voters may get mixed up thinking they already voted on it in June.

"This may seem like a new request," warned Donald Ware.

Fifty-eight percent of the $1.1 million is "forgivable" and the rest will be financed through a no-interest loan.

"We couldn't do this without the grant," Eastman said of projects that will be undertaken to upgrade health, safety and air quality issues.

The town meeting will be in the same format as usual. Each town will have to hold a special town meeting with its own ballot and the same question that will allow SAD 17 to approve the issuance of bonds or notes for minor capital project purposes.

"It is what it is. You have to do the process if you want to get the money," Eastman said.