Overrides, park and rides and expanded warrant size: an altered town meeting season has arrived again on the Vineyard.

And unlike last year, when towns pared down warrants, slashed budgets and deferred spending in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, a pile of long-sought capital projects and budget items have come back into focus, including a new town wharf in Edgartown, a new school in Tisbury, a new park and ride in Oak Bluffs and a new emergency services facility in Chilmark.

Nearly all town budgets are set to see a larger increase in fiscal year 2022 than in fiscal year 2021, as towns reinstitute cost of living adjustments for staff, add personnel positions and return to deferred funding requests from the regional high school district.

West Tisbury is set to have only its second Proposition 2 1/2 budget override in the past 17 years. Most towns have hefty debt exclusion questions on their ballots.

Normally held from mid-April to mid-May, the pandemic has once more shifted Island town meetings outdoors and its calendar closer to summer, with a flurry of meetings scheduled for late May and continuing into June.

The season begins with the Oak Bluffs annual town meeting, scheduled for May 15 at noon at the Tabernacle, followed by West Tisbury on May 18, also at the Tabernacle. Then Edgartown comes on May 22 under a tent at the Edgartown School, and Chilmark follows on May 24, outdoors next to the Community Center.

Tisbury’s annual town meeting is scheduled for June 12, with a special town meeting to vote on the school slated for one day later, June 13. And Aquinnah — as always — rounds out the group, finishing the season on June 19.

But in another unusual twist, the pandemic has also forced towns — many of which are facing budget overrides or debt exclusion questions — to push elections back, or hold special ones in addition to regularly scheduled polling days.

Oak Bluffs, which has already held its annual election, is set to kick off the town meeting season with a beefy, 46-article warrant that includes capital spending articles for its new town hall, $1.3 million to continue a comprehensive wastewater planning process, and a $200,000 request to pay the town’s matching portion of a $1 million state Seaport Economic Council grant to beautify, reduce congestion and improve port entry around the North Bluff.

Also on the warrant is a $510,000 request to build a town park and ride on town land at the corner of County Road and Pennsylvania avenue. The request was not recommended by the town financial advisory committee, which cited the incompleteness of the proposal, including no clear arrangement with the Vineyard Transit Authority (VTA) for the “ride” part of the project.

Last year, the town cut the budget by about $500,000 in the wake of the pandemic, deferring capital costs from bathroom refurbishment to a shellfish truck. This year, the proposed town budget is set to increase by about 4.57 per cent to $34 million.

“Everything has gone up, from landscaping . . . to health insurance,” acting town administrator Wendy Brough said.

The budget increase, pushed by school spending, staff salaries, fire department restructuring and other deferred costs, will not cause an override.

But West Tisbury, which rarely has an override, is set to have one this year, town accountant Bruce Stone said.

Although the town saw a large decrease in its regional high school assessment, which partially depends on the number of town students enrolled at the high school, the addition of town personnel, like an assistant health agent and a full-time fire chief, as well as a $257,000 request for roof repairs at the West Tisbury School, have pushed the tax levy to its ceiling.

“We have a fairly heavy duty load of warrant articles,” Mr. Stone said.

The town normally relies on free cash from previous years to lower the tax levy, according to Mr. Stone, but town officials felt that was unsustainable in the long-term.

The operating budget will increase 2.2 per cent, to $20.3 million, while the tax levy will go up about five per cent, Mr. Stone said. The town has had the lowest tax levy increase on the Island in the past 15 years.

A special town election to approve the override is set for May 20.

In Edgartown, a $2.85 million request to fund a long-term project to renovate, raise and refurbish Memorial Wharf through free cash and a bond will top the 81-article town meeting warrant. The town budget will go up 3.8 per cent to $40.8 million, with personnel and other deferred capital spending from 2020 accounting for a large portion of the increase.

The Memorial Wharf renovation has also received a $1 million Seaport Economic Council grant to defray costs from the nearly $4 million project. But the project will need to receive a majority vote at the ballot box during the annual town election, which was delayed until May 25.

“It was deferred,” Mr. Hagerty said of the project. “We have a timeline to utilize that money, and if it isn’t utilized it is going back to the state. But Memorial Wharf is still going to need to be rehabilitated. It is starting to turn toward a safety hazard.”

Other deferred spending items include $100,000 for a town master plan, $14,000 for bathhouses at South Beach and $200,000 for an elevator in town hall.

Mr. Hagerty said the town had worked hard to keep the budget tight, despite the deferred spending items.

Chilmark, which otherwise has a fairly routine warrant with numerous articles related to school spending, is asking residents to fund the construction of an $11 million fire station off Menemsha Crossroad and a new tri-town EMS building located at 399 Middle Road. The project has been years in the making and will require a majority vote during the annual town election on May 26.

The largest capital project, however, will come last in Tisbury, as town officials are getting set to present voters with an approximately $55 million project to renovate, expand and modernize the aging school building. The project will be financed by bonds paid out over the next three decades, town officials estimate, with the tax levy increasing by about 10 per cent.

The increase would initially add $738 to the property taxes on a home assessed at $800,000, for example.

A $46 million project to renovate the school with partial state funding was approved at town meeting in 2018 before narrowly failing at the ballot box.

Tisbury, as well as Aquinnah, is still finalizing other articles on its 2021 annual town meeting warrant.

And Edgartown, for the first time in its recent history, will have to elect a moderator from the town meeting floor after the recent death of Sean Murphy, who served as moderator for the past two years.

“It’s up to the voters,” Mr. Hagerty said.