More than a year after Town Meeting voted to establish a board of sewer commissioners, residents are wondering when they'll get to elect members to that board, and officials say "language" is holding things up.

In October 2010, voters approved a change to the Town Charter that would create an elected board of five sewer commissioners to oversee sewer system and its finances.

Such a change to the Charter requires approval of the state Legislature.

"We have [the bill] prepared to file, but evidently, there's some related Charter issues that could be involved ... with the way it's written right now," said State Senator Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton), who will sponsor the bill.

Pacheco said the petition - which was given to the senate as it was approved by Town Meeting voters - is going back and forth between state Senate lawyers and town lawyers.

Alan Slavin, who served on the town's Charter Review Committee that proposed the Charter change to Town Meeting, said he's confused as to why the legislation is held up.

"All the Charter [change] articles were reviewed by Town Counsel" before Town Meeting, Slavin said. "That's standard procedure. I don't understand why there's any issue on wording."

Slavin said he'd heard that there was an issue with the wording about four months ago, but has had trouble getting information from officials regarding the problem.

"If there was even a problem four months ago," Slavin asked, "why wasn't this straightened out?"

Town Administrator Mark Andrews did not respond to a request seeking comment, but told the Board of Selectmen on Tuesday that "there were overlapping legislative issues" with the proposal - echoing Pacheco's assessment of the situation. Andrews mentioned that there is "a great deal of angst" about fixing the issues without making major changes to the original proposal.

Currently, the Board of Selectmen serves as Sewer Commissioners. Town Meeting voters argued that the dual role was too much for that board.

"It takes a lot of a Selectman’s time," then-Selectman Brenda Eckstrom said during the October 2010 Town Meeting. “If you do it right, it takes over 50 percent of the time of the Selectmen.”

The town's sewer system has been a hot-button issue in recent years. In 2000, the state Department of Environmental Protection recommended that 12 neighborhoods be sewered by 2024 in an effort to reduce nitrogen in Wareham's waterways. It also suggested that the sewer plant be upgraded, which the town completed in 2005 at a cost of $23 million.

Residents have expressed discontent with the costs associated with expanding the sewer system and upgrading the plant, which are borne by all sewer users - not all residents. Sewer users have said that the system is inherently unfair, as all residents enjoy cleaner water as a result of sewering.

At issue now, Pacheco said, is the proposed addition of "notwithstanding language," or language that says that the law supersedes any general statute or special law to the contrary.

"If you don't have that [language] as part of it, then you have to comply with all the other statutes, even if that wasn't the intent," Pacheco explained.

If lawyers determine that the addition of the language would excessively change the bill from what Town Meeting approved in October 2010, an updated article with the new language would have to go before Town Meeting voters for approval, Pacheco said.

"We're just trying to get done what the community wants us to do," Pacheco added.

Once the language of the proposal is straightened out, the bill will enter the legislative process. That is not likely to happen until next year, as the current legislative session ends on November 16. The next session begins on January 4, 2012.