Tisbury voters are likely to be asked in June to approve $55 million in long-term bond debt to renovate, expand and modernize the town’s 90-year-old school building.

Financing and repaying the bonds over 30 years is expected to increase the property tax rate by about 10 per cent, town finance director Jon Snyder said Wednesday at a joint videoconference with the selectmen, school committee, school building committee and financial and advisory committee.

The current tax rate is $9.17 per $1,000 of assessed property value, Mr. Snyder said. “We’re looking at adding 92 cents to that.”

The increase would add $738 to the property taxes on a home assessed at $800,000, according to worksheets prepared by school financing consultant Lynne Welsh of UniBank Fiscal Advisory Services in Whitinsville.

Selectman Jeff Kristal noted that during the life of the proposed bond measure, homeowners will also see reductions in their taxes as older bonds mature on town property such as the fire station.

“Our debt has been rolling off, and will fall off significantly with the fire station coming off,” he said.

Asking voters to approve $55 million up front does not preclude lowering that amount if other sources of funding are found, Ms. Welsh told the officials. If the spending is approved, taxpayers may not begin seeing the increase until fiscal 2024. “We would not permanently finance this project until the construction bids are in,” Ms. Welsh said.

Renovations and expansion at the aging town school have seen a long road of stops and starts in recent years. After years of planning, a $46 million project to build a new school passed on the town meeting floor but failed narrowly in the ballot box in 2018. The town lost a lucrative state grant for reimbursement and was forced to start over.

The plan that is expected to come before voters in June would expand and renovate the school at an estimated cost of $55 million, with no state funding.

It remains undecided whether the school bond article will be included on the annual town meeting warrant June 5, or be placed on a single-article special town meeting warrant for a separate day.

Town meeting moderator Deborah Medders has recommended the latter and is preparing a more detailed proposal for an upcoming meeting.

Also Wednesday the financial and advisory committee approved a request to take $25,000 from the reserve fund for the school building committee to create educational materials, including mailers and a video, about the school building project.

By law, such materials can’t be used to lobby for a voting outcome. But school committee chairman Amy Houghton said the materials are needed to inform voters about the proposal, in lieu of holding public meetings.

“We have found public gathering very difficult,” Ms. Houghton told fincom members. “This was certainly unanticipated, due to Covid.”

Like other school communications, all the materials created will be in Portuguese as well as in English, Ms. Houghton said.