The West Tisbury town meeting kicked off on a fiery note Tuesday with residents voting down the town’s portion of the regional high school operating budget in protest of the school’s ongoing legal battle over plans for an artificial turf field.

But voters who gathered at the West Tisbury school readily approved the town’s portion of the $2 million Island-wide feasibility study that will look at potentially replacing or renovating the regional high school. They also agreed to a new regional funding agreement for the project.

“This is the culmination of two years of effort and a lot of hard work,” said high school administrator Sam Hart, in urging support for the study.

Spending issues were the centerpiece of discussion throughout the evening, with voters approving a $19.9 million town budget. If the town’s $3.4 million share of the high school operating budget had remained, the total would have been a 5.16 per cent increase over last year.

The town also approved a series of funding requests.

After some debate, voters agreed to spend $1.2 million to fix the library’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, and $400,000 to increase town employee salaries, proposed by the personnel board.

Adam Petkus speaks in favor of town employee raises.

Albert O. Fischer

Adam Petkus speaks in favor of town employee raises.

Albert O. Fischer

Select board member Cynthia Mitchell spoke against the salary increase, which represents a 10 per cent raise to town employee pay, on top of a 4.4 percent cost of living adjustment. The increase, Ms. Mitchell said, was implemented outside of normal personnel board procedures, and would be a significant town expenditure.

“I find this completely unsupportable,” she said.

Town resident Adam Petkus, however, said the article could improve employee retention in town, and provide high paying jobs to younger Islanders.

“Take a look around you. How many people my age do you see in this room?” he said.

Other speakers emphasized a sharp rise in the cost of living on the Island as justification for the increase. The article passed by majority vote.

Questions were also raised about the HVAC article, with voters asking how the relatively new system was already failing. Town administrator Jen Rand said the breakdown was due to an error from the company that manufactured certain fittings, a company which has since gone out of business.

Sam Hart urges voters to approve funding for high school feasibility study.

Albert O. Fischer

Sam Hart urges voters to approve funding for high school feasibility study.

Albert O. Fischer

Others cited the rising costs associated with the Chilmark School HVAC as a reason to approve the repairs now. Library director Alexandra Pratt spoke to the need for a working system.

“We’ve been limping along these past three years with space heaters and window A/C units,” she said. “It’s really hard to keep the library, which is our town cooling shelter, at the temperature it should be.”

The HVAC spending and the town’s contribution to the high school feasibil

ity study both need separate approval by voters at the town election Thursday.

An update to the town zoning for pools also got the thumbs up, after an amendment made on the floor by town energy committee chair Kate Warner. The proposed bylaw initially banned the use of fossil fuel heating in West Tisbury pools, but Ms. Warner moved that the requirement be changed to a recommendation after town counsel informed the committee that such a requirement would not be approved by the state attorney general.

“We are not allowed to surpass the state building code,” she explained.

A citizen petition that would have banned noise from construction and landscaping on Sundays and holidays was voted down.

The meeting was scheduled to begin at 6 p.m., but was delayed for lack of a quorum of 140 voters. At 6:21, moderator Dan Waters banged the gavel down when 141 voters were counted present.

The meeting opened with a moment of silence for community members who died in the past year, along with a poem by town poet laureate Tain Leonard Peck called Barnyard Emperor, read by last year’s laureate Spencer Thurlow.

The meeting quickly took an unexpected turn when the line item for West Tisbury’s share of the high school operating budget — $3.4 million — came up. Objections were raised to a recent decision by the school committee to continue funding litigation against the Oak Bluffs planning board, which denied a plan to use artificial turf on the school’s athletic fields. Select board member Jeffrey (Skipper) Manter noted that even though the objections related to the legal budget, the only way to lodge a protest was to amend the entire school budget line item to zero.

Doug Ruskin called the litigation an “egregious breach of fiduciary responsibility.”

“This is a financial argument,” he said. “This isn’t a threat to education in any way.”

Former school committee member and West Tisbury resident Kate DeVane also spoke in favor of denying the budget line.

“We’re setting an unbelievably bad example for our children by suing ourselves, it’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard of,” she said. “The school can’t keep shoving this down our throats.”

School district superintendent Richie Smith pushed back, saying this year’s budget increase was among the lowest in recent memory. Returning it to the school committee “will impact programming,” he said.

West Tisbury voters voted nearly unanimously by a show of hands against approving the money.

“It takes four out of six towns to approve the budget,” Mr. Manter noted. If at least four towns vote to approve their portion, he said, West Tisbury “will pay the assessed amount whether we like it or not.”