Money for wastewater planning, pay raises for town employees and a large infusion of cash into a rainy day fund all top the agenda when Edgartown voters gather for their annual town meeting Tuesday night.

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Old Whaling Church. Moderator and town poet laureate Steve Ewing will preside for his second year. There are 79 articles on the annual town meeting warrant and 13 on a special town meeting warrant. A quorum of 213 voters is needed to convene the meeting.

But despite the bulky warrants, town administrator James Hagerty said aside from the high-profile question of whether to create an Islandwide housing bank, it’s mostly routine business this year.

“There’s no overrides, there’s no capital exclusions, there’s no debt questions, so it’s not anything that now goes to the ballot aside from the housing bank,” Mr. Hagerty said during a recent interview and review of the warrant at his office in the town hall.

With town meetings back to their regular schedule this year for the first time in three years, Mr. Hagerty said in Edgartown the goal, as always, is to finish in one night.

“We don’t want to go two nights, three nights because getting that quorum back is difficult in Edgartown,” he said.

Voters will take up a $40.7 million annual town operating budget, a 3.09 per cent increase over last year.

As in every Island town this year, the housing bank question is expected to dominate discussion. The proposal to ask the state legislature to allow the creation of a first-of-its-kind Islandwide housing bank funded by a two per cent transfer fee on real estate transactions will be closely watched in Edgartown, which would generate the bulk of revenues for the bank. Based on 2021 real estate transactions, about 58 per cent of the housing bank’s roughly $14 million in revenue would come from Edgartown, Mr. Hagerty said.

“Just the volume of Edgartown real estate sales has just been so high as of late,” the town administrator said. “If that trend will continue, I would assume, but I don’t have a crystal ball on the market.”

The housing bank is the only article on the warrant that is not recommended by the Edgartown financial advisory committee.

There are multiple spending articles for other affordable housing initiatives. Those include $160,000 for the Community Preservation Affordable Housing Reserve Fund, $112,000 to the Dukes County Regional Housing Authority for its rental assistance program and an additional $30,000 toward the ongoing town affordable housing project on Meshacket Road. Mr. Hagerty wondered aloud if the housing bank passes, would it render such spending unnecessary in the future.

“So those are all kinds of existential questions that, if the housing bank does come full circle, what is going to be the second and third order effects to some of the local affordable housing committees? And I don’t have the answer to that,” he said.

The biggest spending article is a request to put $2 million in surplus funds into the town capital stabilization fund. The reserve funds, which partially come from the short-term rental tax, will allow for nimble access to money for things like affordable housing and climate resiliency projects, Mr. Hagerty said.

“We’re basically just putting it in a bank account, [letting it] grow interest,” he said. “We don’t really know what to do with the money, so let’s just put it away.”

Voters will be asked to spend $491,000 to develop a comprehensive wastewater management plan, as required by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The town wastewater plant, which is the oldest and largest sewage treatment plant on the Vineyard, is rapidly reaching capacity and under pressure amid explosive growth and demand for more sewer hookups. Mr. Hagerty said the plan will create a guide for improved water quality in the Edgartown Harbor, Edgartown Great Pond and Sengekontacket Pond and evaluate the needs of the town’s wastewater infrastructure.

“The benefit of that study: it gives you a paradigm for the rational allocation of resources where wastewater decisions are based on the comprehensive wastewater management plan and based on long-term strategic cause and effect . . . as opposed to any sort of piecemeal approach,” he said.

As the Island works through a maze of planning decisions over how to deal with the effects of climate change, two climate resiliency initiatives are on the Edgartown warrant. One article asks voters for $175,000 to use the town dredge to rebuild the Katama boat landing. Another seeks $200,000 to study Chappaquiddick transportation lines thought to be vulnerable to climate change. The Chappy study could be a discussion point, Mr. Hagerty said.

“I could maybe see citizens saying ‘well that’s just going to benefit the Chappy residents, not necessarily all of Edgartown. But I could say, ‘well Chappy is in Edgartown,’” he said.

A slew of proposed pay increases for town employees are on the warrant, as well as an overhaul of the pay rates for seasonal workers based on a recent compensation study. Twenty full-time positions are up for a raise.

“I think everyone knows, based on market forces, based on retaining [and] keeping talented people, the town has to stay competitive in the labor market,” Mr. Hagerty said.

In other articles, voters will also be asked to direct Community Preservation Act funds toward a variety of outdoor recreational needs, including at the town-owned Cape Pogue Gut property, at Swimming Place Path and at the Robinson Road recreational area. Spending articles for resurfacing town streets, rebuilding sidewalks and harbor mooring improvements are also on the docket.

The annual town election follows the meeting on Thursday, April 14, where there are 12 seats on various town boards and committees as well as a companion question about the housing bank on the ballot. There are no contested races. Incumbent select board member Michael Donaroma is running for another term.

Polls will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the town hall.

Mr. Ewing, a lifelong town resident who was elected last year following the death of moderator Sean Murphy, gave a nod to the wisdom of his predecessors, invoking the late Everett Poole, the longtime Chilmark moderator whom he knew for half a century.

“Even though this will only be my second year [as moderator], I feel like it’s a little club,” he told the Gazette by phone. “I know I’ll be thinking of him during this town meeting.”

He said too that he is grateful for town meeting because it is a reminder that he lives in a place where the community comes together to settle its differences in a civil way.

“Just how fortunate we are to be able to sit in a room with the luxury to discuss the issues that we’re concerned about and to vote to find consensus to move forward as a community. It’s really a privilege to have that,” Mr. Ewing said.

Corrected from an earlier version which reported there is a race for finance committee and library trustee. There are no contested races in Edgartown.