Tisbury voters are set to take up a hefty agenda of spending items and town bylaw changes at their annual town meeting Saturday, including millions of dollars for infrastructure improvements and special legislation to increase the mandatory retirement age for town firefighters.

The meeting begins at 1 p.m. beneath tents on the grounds of the Tisbury School. Masks are required, with separate seating available for those unable to wear a mask.

A single-article special town meeting will be held the following day at 1 p.m. on the pivotal $55 million renovation and expansion project at the Tisbury School. Longtime town moderator Deborah Medders will preside over both meetings.

There are 34 articles on the annual warrant, and 16 on a special town meeting warrant.

But the school project is not the only pricey spending item coming before Tisbury voters this weekend. Voters will take up a $30 million town operating budget, $5 million in roadway repairs, hundreds of thousands of dollars in various capital projects and a long-awaited master plan.

“The goal is to get that business accomplished on Saturday, and then go into Sunday with the Tisbury school business,” town administrator Jay Grande said.

Mr. Grande said check-in begins at noon. The quorum is set at 100 voters.

The $30.3 million fiscal year 2022 million operating budget represents a 3.4 per cent increase over 2021 . Town accountant Jon Snyder said the increase was on par with past years, and that the town tax rate of $9.17 for every $1,000 of assessed value was decreasing by about 16 cents from FY 2021.

The most substantial increases in the budget come from a 14 per cent change in the ambulance line and an additional $384,000 in the town’s regional high school funding contribution. The FY 2022 budget is the first time in the town’s history it has surpassed $30 million.

“We just squeaked under it last year,” Mr. Grande said.

Topping the annual warrant is a $5 million borrowing request to repair or replace roadway surfaces, sidewalks and drainage throughout the town.

“This is a substantial article,” Mr. Grande said. “We’ve redone some roads in recent years, but we really need to do a much larger scope of work. There’s a lot of waterworks projects scheduled, so we want to coordinate water lines with roads.”

The work ranges from patching to full reclamation and overlays on more than 30 roads in the town, including Daggett avenue, Beach street extension and Summer street. A detailed construction schedule spans 2021 to 2034, with most

of the work coming between 2021 and 2024.

If passed, the article also requires a majority vote at the ballot box to exempt it from the provisions of Proposition 2 1/2, the state tax cap.

Additional spending articles include a $200,000 request to fund the town’s portion of the Tabernacle roof replacement, $62,500 for a coastal zone management grant, $120,000 for a new HVAC system at the town library, and $715,000 in water works capital projects. Warrant articles also request $250,000 in Community Preservation Committee money for new har-tru clay tennis courts on Church street between William and Franklin, and $50,000 for improvements to the Lake street tennis courts.

“There’s a lot of that kind of stuff,” Mr. Grande said.

Unlike other Island towns, Tisbury was one of the first and only town in the commonwealth to hold a full town meeting in 2020, according to Mr. Grande, meaning that the town did not have a large backlog of capital improvement projects that got postponed from 2020.

But the town is looking to spend $145,000 to conduct its first master plan — a long-held dream for officials in a town that is struggling to balance environmental concerns with development goals. The plan would map out guidelines for major issues facing the town, including waterfront and downtown redevelopment, softening the edges between residential and non-residential development, Mr. Grande said.

“It would really provide the blueprint for the future of the town, and is something that would help build consensus around these larger issues,” Mr. Grande said. “It helps to have a document like that, that has been thoroughly vetted.”

Voters will also be asked to approve a variety of Islandwide school spending articles, including $72,000 for the town’s portion of two electric school buses and $180,000 for IT upgrades at the high school.

The special town meeting includes approximately a dozen linguistic changes to town zoning bylaws that relate to noise regulations, accessory dwellings and pools. Mr. Grande said the changes were largely for clarity, and characterized them as administrative.

One of the articles seeks a home rule petition for the town to increase the mandatory retirement age of firefighters in the town from 65 to 70. If passed, article would require special legislation at the state level.

“That one is an interesting one,” Mr. Grande said. “This is a way of retaining skill sets that are critically important that you acquire after many years with the fire department. If the person is willing and able, it would behoove us to try to retain these people.”

As part of the town’s effort to consolidate its shellfish and harbor master offices into a natural resources department, voters will also be asked to appropriate about $50,000 to authorize the creation of a natural resources assistant. Mr. Grande said the position would consolidate the jobs of many part-time employees.

“There’s really a need for greater coverage,” he said.

The warrant also includes $100,000 for improvements to the Tisbury School’s outdoor recreation area, which on Saturday will double as its own playground for democracy. Mr. Grande said the goal is to finish the annual town meeting in one day.

“We’re ready to go to town meeting, and get the business done,” Mr. Grande said.