Tisbury voters will be asked to defy the weak economy and spend big at a special town meeting Tuesday night. Articles on the warrant call for spending more than $7 million.

The bulk of it, $6.8 million in new borrowing, is earmarked for the construction, equipping and furnishing of the town’s long-planned and sorely needed new emergency services building.

And the figure in the article is only an estimate, although a more accurate figure will be available by the time of the meeting. Bids for the project are due to be opened today.

The special town meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the Tisbury School.

If approved by town meeting and by a later corresponding ballot vote, the cost of borrowing for the project would add about $200 a year to the local taxes on an average $800,000 Tisbury home.

The plan is to colocate the town fire, ambulance and emergency management services at a site away from the busy downtown area. The current fire station, built almost 45 years ago, is too small, and a study concluded the cost of repairing or extending it was prohibitive.

It also forms part of a larger plan to eventually relocate many of the town’s buildings and functions which now are inconveniently scattered. The site for the new emergency services facility, on Spring street opposite the Tisbury elementary school, was approved at last year’s special town meeting.

But its construction will have a knock-on effect, for the land now is occupied by the Tisbury town hall annex, which will have to move.

The first article on the 20-article warrant deals with the $6.8 million cost of the new building, including architectural, construction, administration and project management costs.

The second article seeks $115,000 for relocating the operations of the annex to a temporary site on High Point Lane.

Articles three and four propose borrowing two amounts of $100,000 each to pay for the installation of green technology, in the form of photovoltaic panels for the new building.

While the first two articles are supported unanimously by the selectmen and the finance and advisory committee, the third and fourth, relating to the solar panels, are unanimously opposed.

The reason for this, finance committee vice chairman Jonathan Snyder explained yesterday, is that the panels could be installed either at the completion of the project, or any time later.

“The building will be wired to take them any time, and the technology is evolving fairly quickly. We felt that it made sense on these smaller pieces of the project to delay funding them, and see what is available two or three years from now,” Mr. Snyder said.

Mr. Snyder, the author of the voter guide to be distributed at the meeting, stressed that, solar panels excepted, his committee is very strongly pushing for the approval of the emergency services building.

He acknowledged some voters would be resistant, given the current state of the economy, but said there are a number of pressing reasons to go ahead with construction now.

“If anybody goes in and looks at the existing fire station they will see the building is just decrepit. It’s falling apart. And it’s too small. And it’s on a busy street way down in one corner of the town.

“The new location is a better location. It will be a better building by far, and the building should last us 50 years.

“So we shouldn’t be worrying about the immediate financial situation. The recession will end long before this building has had its lifetime.

“And because of the recession our borrowing cost is as low as it’s been in 50 years. So there is a real advantage to doing it now.

“The town has already voted several times to go ahead with this project, so this meeting is just about the funding of it — authorizing the borrowing. Beside the fact that the interest cost will only be higher later on, the longer we wait to build the facility, the more expensive it will be,” Mr. Snyder said.

Another central article on the warrant is the last one, which would authorize the selectmen to petition the state to legislate to change the current funding formula for the regional high school.

Since the formula was last changed, three years ago, Tisbury has been forced to pay well over $400,000 more than it otherwise would have to support the school.

Over the same period other towns, notably Oak Bluffs, have seen their contribution to the funding of the high school reduced.

Before the new formula was applied in 2006, the six town assessments were based simply on the number of students each town sent to the high school. The new model sought to adjust contributions according to the wealth of various towns, calculated by income, property values and other factors.

The new model was supposed to phase in over five years, said Tisbury finance director Tim McLean, after which time Tisbury’s share of the costs was supposed to revert to pretty much where it started out.

“But the phase-in keeps getting extended, first to seven years, and now it looks like 10,” he said.

In the first three years of the new formula’s operation, it has cost the town an extra $234,000, $110,000, and $83,000.

Mr. Snyder said a home rule petition seemed to be the only way to get the state legislature to act to rectify the unfairness.

“In order to have the whole question of how that assessment formula works reviewed by the legislature, it has to be submitted,” he said, “but our representative also represents Oak Bluffs and the other towns and has been very reluctant to submit a piece of legislation.

“So the purpose of this is to enable the town to submit this legislation for consideration.”

The meeting also will conduct a certain amount of housekeeping through less significant articles relating to fund transfers, including:

• $26,575 to restore the town hall windows;

• $4,500 for a new copier at the town hall annex;

• $27,000 for a replacement four-wheel-drive vehicle for the water department;

• $42,500 to develop a hydraulic model and flushing program for the water department;

• $55,000 for the affordable housing project on Lambert’s Cove Road.