AUBURN – If Auburn voters decide to build or renovate Edward Little High School before the state decides which school construction projects to fund, millions of dollars in state aid could vanish.

That’s what school leaders in Auburn learned Wednesday during a meeting with officials from the state Department of Education.

“They said Auburn’s application would go into the dead file,” School Committee Chairman David Das said Wednesday after the meeting.

The issue is timing.

Since last fall, Auburn school leaders have been working to find a solution to the high school’s woes. With squeezed state budgets and no new school construction cycles planned by the state, the local leaders decided to strike out on their own.

They contracted an analysis of the school and began weighing plans for its fix. The projected costs: $61.1 million for a new high school and $48.7 for a full renovation and addition.

The city began planning for a June 2010 school referendum.

Then, last month, State Education Commissioner Susan Gendron announced plans to re-ignite the multimillion-dollar process for funding new school construction in early 2010.

“It’s a long process,” said David Connerty-Marin, spokesman for the Department of Education. “The applications take half a year to a year to be submitted. Then, there’s generally a year-long process of reviewing and scoring those applications.”

When that work is done, the state ranks the old or rundown schools.

Until the ranking is finished, the state would see a citywide vote on construction as removal from the process, Das said.

The School Committee will be faced with the decision of whether to put off the vote until the state has created its list or forge ahead, Das said.

Currently, the school’s building committee is weighing whether to rebuild at the current site, rebuild somewhere else or renovate. The committee’s next meeting is scheduled for Aug. 27.

If the city goes alone, the project could be done by 2013, just as any state-funded project would likely begin, he said.

The state hasn’t accepted applications for new school construction or renovation since 2004. A year later, the last time the state created a priority list of needy schools, Edward Little High School was No. 44.

In all, the top 20 were funded. Pettingill Elementary School in Lewiston placed sixth. It’s replacement, the Geiger Elementary School, is due to open this fall.

In April, Edward Little High School was placed on probation by its accreditor, the New England Association of Schools & College’s Commission on Public Secondary Schools.

The group cited 41 deficiencies and described “dire facilities conditions.” They included poor lab spaces, a lack of storage, squeezed offices and recurring mold.