Budget overflow and simmering tensions in town hall are expected to thread the agenda next week when Aquinnah voters gather for their annual town meeting and election.

It marks the last annual town meeting on the Island this year.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the old town hall. Moderator Michael Hebert will preside. There are 42 articles on the warrant. The town election is Wednesday. Polls are open from noon to 7 p.m. Voters will be asked to approve a general override to Proposition 2 1/2 this year. And the lone contest on the ballot is a heated race for assessor that has been the talk of the town.

A $4.4 million annual town budget that is a 5.8 per cent increase over last year exceeds the state-mandated tax cap and will require a $110,000 general override to Proposition 2 1/2 at the ballot box this year. Selectman Jim Newman said the override can be directly tracked to an increase in school spending — with more children attending both the up-Island regional elementary schools and the regional high school, the school budget will go from $1.27 million last year to $1.4 million, an increase of $130,532, or 10.2 per cent.

“Our biggest expense is education,” Mr. Newman said, pointing in particular to high costs at the Chilmark and West Tisbury elementary schools.

Town accountant Emily Day agreed that school spending was a driver in the need for an override — although she said it was not the only one. Changes in the town wage scales after a new personnel classification plan was adopted last year triggered some salary increases, including when contracts were renegotiated in the police and fire departments, she said. And she noted that expenses in the recreation department have crept up following the Gay Head Light move two years ago, as the town works to create a park around the lighthouse in its new location, acquire added property in the area and create amenities in the Circle cultural district.

But she concurred that school spending is among the largest fixed annual obligations for the town.

“It is a main driver of us not having any wiggle room [to cut costs],” Mrs. Day said. She also said the original override amount was closer to $180,000, but was cut down after town department heads were asked to review their own budgets and trim where possible.

Mr. Newman said if the override is not approved, it is not clear what will be done. “I don’t know. It’s going to be my problem. We will just have to find the money,” he said.

Beyond the budget, the town meeting warrant is mostly a lineup of routine spending requests, including $44,000 for a new police cruiser, $23,000 for a guard rail at the Circle, $20,000 for engineering work preparatory to dredging at the West Basin, $3,000 for a brush clearing project at the town cemetery, and $29,700 for the 2018 revaluation of town property.

Community preservation spending requests this year cover the usual waterfront of open space, historic preservation and affordable housing, including: $26,640 for carrying costs for a State Road affordable housing project, $11,500 for rental assistance, $66,000 for improvements at the Circle, and $32,500 for continued restoration of the Gay Head Light.

Voters will be asked to join a number of regional spending efforts, including $2,758 for the Healthy Aging Task Force First Stop website administered by Martha’s Vineyard Community Services, $3,270 for the Islandwide adult community education program (ACE), and $10,059 for the Vineyard Health Care Access program.

A longstanding town swimming and sailing program that provides free instruction in and on the water for Aquinnah children needs $6,500 and $9,500 respectively to continue this year.

Aquinnah voters will be the last town to take action on the $2.5 million request from the regional refuse district for a planned expansion at the central transfer facility in Edgartown that serves four towns. The project was previously approved in Aquinnah, West Tisbury and Chilmark but had to be revoted this year after Edgartown threw a monkey wrench into the works last year by voting it down. The plan won easy approval last month at the Edgartown annual town meeting.

By far the most controversial item on the warrant is article 42, a proposal by the town selectmen to change the board of assessors from elected to appointed. Selectmen and their assessors have been feuding in recent months over matters of authority and control, causing ripples of tension in town hall and at the selectmen’s meetings. If the article is approved, a second vote would be required in the ballot box, but that cannot happen until next year unless the selectmen call a special election. A corresponding question had been planned for the town ballot this year, but town administrator Adam Wilson said this week that the question had to be removed because state law requires a minimum of 60 days between a vote at town meeting and on the ballot for this particular question.

The issue has been further complicated by the fact that Mr. Wilson is challenging longtime assessor Michael Stutz for his elected seat. The race has sparked charges and counter-charges between the two candidates. Mr. Wilson claims that Mr. Stutz no longer lives in town full time and therefore cannot properly fulfill his obligations as an assessor. And Mr. Stutz has challenged whether Mr. Wilson could even run for office because he is town administrator.

There was no letup in the heat at the selectmen’s meeting Monday night when Mr. Newman had a sharp exchange with principal assessor Angela Cywinski, who has said publicly she believes the selectmen want to oust her. In yet another twist, Mr. Wilson announced Monday that he would resign as town administrator sometime in the next 60 days. He plans to take another job as outreach coordinator with Bay State Wind, the Danish consortium developing a wind farm south of the Vineyard.

Speaking to the Gazette by telephone after the meeting, selectman and board chairman Juli Vanderhoop said Mr. Wilson had been an asset to the town and she would be sorry to see him go. As for the assessors imbroglio, she said:

“We need to solve this and iron things out — the taxpayers should be able to count on the town to have a smoothly running government. And this is a brouhaha.”