Edgartown officials are moving forward on a plan to reorganize the town cemetery department, including shifting cemetery maintenance to the highway department.

The reorganization partly involves recommendations from an independent report released this summer after months of internal conflict between the three-member cemetery commission and cemetery superintendent.

The cemetery department has oversight of the town’s four cemeteries, some of which include pre-Revolutionary graves.

At a Tuesday morning meeting, selectmen and cemetery commissioners discussed the next step, which will eventually require town meeting approval. The plan includes turning over all maintenance to the highway department, which will have two more employees. The highway superintendent will be solely in charge of cemetery equipment and maintenance, according to plans, and an assistant working 10 hours a week will help cemetery commissioners with taking minutes, selling lots, and other things.

The cemetery budget will have an amount to cover an assistant’s salary and $10,000 for use by the assistant, while remaining cemetery funds will be transferred to the highway department budget.

The change in staff would take place after a town meeting vote to approve the budget changes, likely on a special town meeting warrant in April.

Disagreements and tensions between cemetery superintendent Jen Morgan and the cemetery commission date back to at least early 2015. Ms. Morgan received a poor evaluation and was suspended for 30 days in 2015; she later filed a grievance over the suspension.

This past summer, West Tisbury consultants Robert and Susan Wasserman delivered a report to selectmen detailing the conflict, which they said was irreconcilable. The report from their company Strategic Policy Partnership LLC recommended several steps, including abolishing the cemetery commission and establishing town selectmen as commissioners, providing committees with better support to understand open meeting requirements and ethics issues, providing a full-time clerical staff member for the cemetery department, and moving cemetery maintenance staff to control of the highway department.

The town plans to retain the cemetery commission, which the selectmen noted on Tuesday is one of the town’s oldest commissions.

Selectman Margaret Serpa commissioners will work with highway superintendent Stuart Fuller.

At the meeting, cemetery commissioners raised some concerns about the change, including making sure flags are placed at graves for Memorial Day and gravestones are well taken care of. Ms. Morgan did not attend the meeting.

“The biggest concern I have is making sure the communication between the commissioners and the highway department is an open-ended thing,” commissioner Andrew Kelly said. “I think the highway department has a lot on their shoulders all the time.”

Ms. Serpa said the highway department has stepped in before at the cemeteries, and will have a larger staff to work with, and the cemetery assistant will be the liaison between the cemetery commission and the highway.

“It’s a better use of employees and funds to do it in this matter,” Ms. Serpa said.

“I’ve had a lot of concerns and as I read through your synopsis I see that about all of them are taken care of,” cemetery commissioner Susan Brown said.

The cemetery commission is also working on revising and updating cemetery rules and regulations, which they are scheduled to address further at a meeting next week.