After more than one round of discussion, the Oak Bluffs selectmen have finally settled on May 15 as the date for the annual town meeting this year.

The annual town election will be held on April 15.

At a special meeting Friday, selectmen agreed on the dates and signed off on a 46-article warrant, with a last-minute addition involving the town fire chief. Selectman Ryan Ruley proposed adding an article to change the fire chief from its current strong chief designation to a weak chief. Spelled out under an arcane Massachusetts law pertaining to fire chiefs, the strong chief/weak chief designation mainly affects how contracts are written for fire chiefs.

The proposed change comes as the town begins interviewing candidates to fill the fire chief job, which has been vacant since last winter.

One sticking point on the warrant this year involved three capital spending requests from the regional high school that would require an override of Proposition 2 1/2, the state-mandated tax cap.

The shared spending requests are coming before every Island town.

At an earlier meeting last week, selectmen said they had no problem with requests for $73,128 for electric buses, and $183,572.57 for technology infrastructure upgrades at the high school.

But they balked at a request to increase the line item for other post-employment benefits (OPEB) in the high school’s budget by $84,579.

Town administrator Robert Whritenour explained that the first two items could be exempted from the tax cap on a one-time basis as capital debt exclusions. But the OPEB request would permanently raise the tax levy, Mr. Whritenour said.

“I don’t believe this is fundamentally the way to solve it with a permanent increase and a permanent allocation to the high school’s OPEB through our tax rate,” said selectman Brian Packish.

Selectman Jason Balboni agreed, “I have a serious problem with it,” he said. “I’m just not willing to raise the taxes of the residents of Oak Bluffs during this year of Covid so that we can get the high school to where they need to be . . . we need to find a way to do it but this isn’t the way that I think we should be doing it.”

Selectmen voted to not place the article on the warrant.