A growing budget, a lengthy agenda featuring nearly $6 million in budget overrides and the end of an era await Edgartown voters when they gather next week for special and annual town meetings.

The meetings will convene on Tuesday, April 10 at 7 p.m. at the Old Whaling Church. There are 75 articles on the annual town meeting warrant and 17 articles on the special town meeting warrant.

Philip J. Norton Jr. will preside in his final appearance after 43 years as town moderator. He will not be on the ballot at the town election on Thursday, April 12, when voters will face a two-way race for selectman, several spending questions and a controversial question about whether to add fluoride to town water.

As a prelude to retirement, Mr. Norton will guide Edgartown through a busy night of town business. The top line of the night is spending, from annual town expenses to repairs to town structures.

Voters will take up a $36.8 million budget, an increase of five per cent, or $1.9 million, over last year.

Town administrator Pamela Dolby said the budget increase was driven mainly by pay raises following a compensation and classification study commissioned last year. Voters approved the salary adjustments at a special town meeting last fall.

“We hadn’t done a salary review in many years,” Mrs. Dolby said this week.“Just about everybody is getting a raise.”

The town’s portion of the high school budget is up by about $500,000, she said, and the Edgartown School budget is up by more than $300,000. Retirement payments also went up, she said, as they have over the last several years.

One changing of the guard will be less evident Tuesday, which will be Mrs. Dolby’s last annual town meeting as town administrator. She announced her retirement earlier this year. As town administrator Mrs. Dolby guided everything from the town budget to town meetings and the town report, which was hot off the press this week.

“I feel pretty good about that,” Mrs. Dolby said. “It’s done.”

Two big spending requests top town meeting spending, both tied to Proposition 2 1/2 override questions on ballot. Voters will take up a package of wastewater projects totaling $3.7 million, including $1.6 million for a new septage storage facility, $700,000 to replace obsolete electronics, $650,000 in upgradesto the Dunham Road pump station and assorted other improvements.

“There’s a whole lot of little things that need to be done,” selectman and board chairman Arthur Smadbeck said. “We felt it would be a lot better just to do it here, borrow the money to take care of it. Our plant is more than 20 years old . . . you’ve got to take care of things if you want them to continue to last.”

Voters will also be asked to approve $1.2 million to renovate and expand the World War II-era hangar at the town-owned Katama Airfield. The town has been working on replacing the run-down hangar for years, including complicated negotiations to address conservation restrictions.

The total cost of the hangar project would be $1.5 million; town meeting voters have already appropriated $250,000 toward the project and the Katama Trust has donated $73,000.

Both questions require a two-thirds majority approval as well as approval at the town election. Three other spending articles that require Proposition 2 1/2 approval include $400,000 to rebuild and resurface town streets, $350,000 for building and repairing town sidewalks, bike paths, and storm water drains, and $225,000 for a new street sweeper.

The town budget and several special town meeting articles also reflect the costs of the town taking over operations of the Katama Airfield; in the past the property has been leased out.

Most of that spending will come back to the town through income from landing fees, hangar rentals and leasing the airfield restaurant, Mrs. Dolby said.

Mr. Smadbeck said several spending requests to support collaborative senior programs and social services will likely be amended on the town meeting floor. Articles for funding the town’s contribution to programs including the Core program of the Martha’s Vineyard Councils on Aging, the Healthy Aging Task Force and the Dukes County social services and substance abuse prevention order programs all indicate that money will not be available unless all six towns approve.

Edgartown’s share of the programs ranges from $15,181 to $25,568.

Oak Bluffs selectmen declined to put the articles on their town meeting warrant this year, replacing them with $40,000 for social programs to be distributed at the discretion of selectmen.

“We still want to support our council on aging, we still want to support [these] programs,” Mr. Smadbeck said. The county social services program helps the neediest people on the Island, he said. In all, he said, the programs cost relatively small amounts of money, “but they do amazing things for us.”

An article for half the town’s share of funding for the cost of the county communications center, or about $93,000, was not recommended by the financial advisory committee and was put on the warrant by petition. Sheriff Robert Ogden is seeking funding from all six Island towns toward the communications center this year, a proposal that received pushback from selectmen, who declined to place it on the warrant.

Proposed community preservation spending includes setting aside $100,000 for the town’s Yellow House project, in the event of litigation, with the amount returned if it is not needed; $250,000 for the Meshacket affordable housing project and $200,000 for restoration of the bulkhead at the North Wharf.

Voters will also be asked to spend $340,000 for updates to the recreational area at Robinson Road, including fixing the tennis courts, and adding two pickleball courts and a shuffleboard court.

Updates to wording in historic district commission bylaws, amending outdated parts of the zoning bylaws and updates to cemetery bylaws are also on the agenda. Administrator Jessica McGroarty said the official cemetery rules were last updated in 1987. Changes include planting guidelines, such as banning invasive plant species like wisteria and lilacs, she said.

On Thursday Edgartown voters will head to the polls, with a contested race for selectman topping the ballot. Incumbent Arthur Smadbeck is facing a challenge from Gail Gardner.

In other contested races, incumbents Paulo DeOliveira, Robert E. Coad and Morton Fearey Jr., and challenger Jane R. Chittick are all in the running for three seats on the financial advisory committee. Scott William Morgan and Robert H. Strayton are both running for a seat on the planning board. Incumbent water commissioner James E. Kelleher is facing a challenge from Fred R. Domont.

In addition to the five override questions, Edgartown voters will weigh in on a hotly-debated question about whether to add fluoride to town water. The board of health voted to add fluoride 2-0 with one abstention last fall. Residents responded with a petition to place the question on the town ballot, a process allowed by state law.

Water superintendent Bill Chapman said adding fluoride would cost about $640,000 in capital costs, plus $13,000 to $14,000 annually. Unless there is another source of funding, he said the cost would be paid for by the tax base or water rates. “We certainly can’t afford it off our budget as it stands,” he said.

Board of health members said they are acting in the interest of oral health, especially for children, and following hundreds of other communities around the country that add fluoride to public water. On the Vineyard Oak Bluffs is the only town to do so. The proposal has been debated at recent meetings. The Dukes County Health Council recently voted to support the fluoridation initiative.

On the ballot Thursday, Sean E. Murphy is running unopposed for moderator. Barring a write-in candidate, he will take the gavel at the next town meeting.

Polls are open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the town hall meeting room.