Aquinnah residents stand to lose their access to federal flood insurance by July 8 unless town voters come out to approve revisions to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) national flood insurance program, at special town meeting on Tuesday night.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the old town hall building. Moderator Michael Hebert will preside.

An article calling for the same revisions was approved at the annual town meeting in May, but at Tuesday’s selectmen’s meeting, chairman Camille Rose said that vote was not valid. “We discovered the flood insurance article was not legal,” she said, because the planning board had not held the required public hearing to discuss the article. “So we squeezed in a special town meeting as quick as we could.”

The flood insurance question is one of seven articles on the warrant. Voters will also be asked to approve three amendments to their personnel bylaw, including one that will change the definition of a full-time employee to anyone working 30 or more hours per week. The town currently considers anyone working 20 or more hours per week to be full-time.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Ms. Rose called the change a “compromise.”

At the meeting Tuesday, she said Chilmark’s threshold for full-time employee status is 37 and a half hours. She said for the town to consider 20 hours per week to be full-time is “ridiculous” and “unsupportable.”

Because part-time employees are not entitled to as many benefits as full-time employees, the change would result in future savings for the town. If the articles are passed by town voters, the new thresholds would apply only to employees hired after June 30 of this year. Benefit packages for existing employees would not change as a result of the amendment.

“It’s much more realistic,” Ms. Rose said of the proposed change.

Another amendment to the personnel bylaw states that full-time employees who work less than five days per week will be paid on a prorated basis for the purpose of calculating holiday benefits. “It just prorates it so they’re entitled to the same holiday benefits as everyone else,” said Ms. Rose. In March, full-time library employees brought the issue before the selectmen, claiming that they should be compensated for holidays on which they were not scheduled to work. Ms. Rose said that the amendment should resolve that issue for the future.

On Tuesday night, Mr. Hebert, who is also chairman of the personnel committee, expressed concern that he was not notified in advance of the special town meeting or the proposed personnel bylaw amendments. He said his committee should have been given the opportunity to make a recommendation on the articles.

“The selectmen are probably trying to do too much on their own,” Mr. Hebert said. “The people who are being appointed to these positions now feel hurt,” he said of other members of the committee.

But the selectmen said the oversight was a result of the last-minute need to address the flood insurance issue at a special town meeting, and the pressing need to change the personnel bylaw. “I am terribly sorry that you weren’t notified of the special town meeting. I am mortified that you weren’t,” said Ms. Rose.

But she also chastised the committee for failing to meet regularly. “I believe that these committees should be meeting on a regular basis,” Ms. Rose said. “You just abandoned us. You can’t expect us to invite you to come and do your work. I think that you all knew that you had to go over the personnel bylaw. We were a little distressed that you hadn’t come to our aid on these warrant articles. We had a situation we had to deal with.”

Also at the meeting, Mr. Hebert read a letter to the selectmen from his wife, cemetery commission member Eleanor Hebert. In the letter, Mrs. Hebert said she was recently notified that the selectmen had relieved highway superintendent Jay Smalley of his mowing and brush trimming duties at the cemetery.

“The cemetery commissioners were never informed by the town administrator or the chairman of the selectmen that this would take place, and we were not given the chance to meet and speak on this issue with the selectmen . . . Now to find out that this has been changed without our knowledge is unacceptable. If this is how you are going to conduct business, then I will submit my resignation and you can run the cemetery as you see fit,” Mrs. Hebert wrote.

The selectmen responded that they had been approached by landscaper Isaac Taylor last month, who said Mr. Smalley was feeling overwhelmed with the additional duties. The board agreed to turn the cemetery landscaping tasks over to Mr. Taylor. They said they never meant to exclude Mrs. Hebert from the decision.

Yesterday, Ms. Rose called it a “simple administrative issue.” She said that the board will meet with Mrs. Hebert to discuss it on Monday. “Eleanor was just feeling that she was left out of the process,” Ms. Rose said.

Also at the special town meeting, voters will be asked to appropriate some $12,600 to compensate town treasurer Judith Jardin for unpaid work hours. “It will bring her salary in line with the hours she’s actually working,” said Ms. Rose.

Another $2,500 will be used to compensate town tax collector Wenonah Madison for taking over duties that had previously been assigned to an outside firm. Ms. Rose said that this will result in a savings for the town. “This is a much more efficient system,” she said.

Finally, voters will be asked to appropriate some $5,400 for a new rescue trailer to attach to a police emergency vehicle. But as part of the public safety agreement between the town and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), the tribe agreed to provide the trailer to the town. According to Ms. Rose, the tribe will compensate the town for the cost of the trailer after the article has been approved.