A state grant awarded by the Department of Conservation and Recreation for repairs to the Oak Bluffs waterfront is now the subject of a complicated and contentious conflict, with town officials clashing over how the funds should be used and where the matching portion of the grant — around $300,000 — should come from.

Parks commission chairman Nancy Phillips, also a member of the Sea View waterfront committee, applied for the grant last year through the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund. Ms. Phillips applied for the grant without the knowledge of the selectmen or town administrator Michael Dutton, who has since written a memorandum to all town department heads notifying them that grant applications must come through him.

Last November, the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs announced the town had been awarded $299,204 through to renovate and enhance Sea View Park.

Although the funds are federal, it is technically a state grant, funneled through the Parkland Acquisition and Renovations for Communities program. One provision of the grant is that the town must match the entire amount to receive the funding.

A press release dated Nov. 21 said the funds would be used to renovate the clay and brick bathroom along the North Bluff, replace a comfort station at the old Pay Beach and create a native vegetation rain garden at Waban Park to help reduce pooling after heavy rainfall.

Since that time, there have been varying and sometimes contradictory reports as to how the grant money will be used. There has been discussion about the money being used to renovate the clay and brick bathroom, repair the Civil War monument statue across from the Steamship Authority terminal, build the rain garden and replace the comfort station at Pay Beach.

But the plans keep changing.

Mr. Dutton said this week the grant money will not be used for a rain garden, due partially to a lack of public support. Meanwhile, the Steamship Authority has unveiled plans to build new bathrooms as part of a larger project to rebuild the Oak Bluffs terminal, apparently negating the need for repairs to the town-owned clay and brick comfort station.

Questions also surround where the town will find the $300,000 match when it is faced with a $500,000 deficit for the current fiscal year and as much as a $650,000 deficit for next year

The original plan, the one backed by Ms. Phillips, was to match the federal grant entirely with community preservation act money. In addition to serving on the Sea View waterfront committee and parks commission, Ms. Phillips is also a member of the community preservation act committee, which decides which funding requests make it to voters at town meeting.

At several community preservation meetings last fall, Ms. Phillips said the $300,000 in CPA funds was needed to secure the grant money. Minutes of the Dec. 2 meeting state: “Ms. Phillips said there is a match from the federal land/water conversation fund of almost $300,000. She said she needs the entire amount matched with CPA funds for the grant to go through.”

This 2008 annual town report also states the $300,000 in CPA money will be used to match a state grant.

Ms. Phillips was not the only one vying for CPA funds for repairs to the waterfront last fall and winter. The conservation commission asked for, and received, $75,000 for shoreline engineering of the town beach front to create a plan to reinforce the fragile coastline. The funding was later approved at town meeting by a wide margin.

Meanwhile, the board of health and the parks commission asked the CPA committee for money to repair the clay and brick comfort station, while the historical commission asked for funding for both the bathroom and Civil War monument. In the end the three committees — the parks commission, historical commission and board of health — joined to file a single application to make repairs to the waterfront under the broad heading of the Sea View heritage project.

At the time, it was generally agreed that the funding would be used to match the state grant, but ostensibly to make repairs to the clay and brick bathrooms and to the Civil War statue.

Around the same time selectman Kerry Scott, also chairman of the Sea View waterfront committee, unsuccessfully asked for $180,000 for repairs to the coastal dune system at the old Pay Beach and Inkwell Beach.

At the time, Ms. Scott disapproved of CPA money going toward Ms. Phillips’s request to match the federal grant. She questioned why the federal grant included repairs to Waban Park — which fall outside the scope of waterfront repairs — and also noted that both the grant application and the request for CPA funding was not approved by the waterfront committee

“[Ms. Scott] said the original [grant] application was not vetted by her full committee,” minutes from the Jan. 20 meeting said. “She noted it included Waban Park’s problems which are not part of what the waterfront committee was focusing on. She said she wishes it had been withdrawn because it was doomed to fail. She also said it was disconcerting that the two people who wrote it sit on the [CPA committee] have at the same time authored projects of their own competing for the same preservation dollars.”

Ms. Phillips did not return a phone call seeking comment.

At Tuesday’s regular selectmen’s meeting, Mr. Dutton gave selectmen a memo explaining where the money would come from to match the federal grant; the memo contradicts previous statements made by Ms. Phillips that the match could come entirely from CPA money.

But the memo also only addresses the cost of engineering, and states that $65,000 is needed to engineer the renovation of the clay and brick bathrooms, of which $32,500 would be used from the CPA money approved at the annual town meeting. Another $20,000 would be needed to engineer the new comfort station, $5,000 of which would come from the town’s engineering line item, and the other $5,000 would come from an article passed at a special town meeting in December of 2007.

Mr. Dutton’s plan also included funding for the engineering of Waban Park at a cost of $50,000, of which $5,000 would be matched through the highway repair account, $2,000 from the shellfish department, $5,000 from the engineering line item, $5,000 from professional and technical services, and $8,000 from the article passed at the special town meeting in December of 2007.

Ms. Scott closely questioned the financial plan on Tuesday, noting the grant application doesn’t match the application for CPA money.

“The match doesn’t match,” she said. “The problem is, we have a grant that was successful. But we have a problem because the match piece wasn’t vetted ahead of time. I have a lot of questions, but I’m in support of doing this. The grant was written without a lot of participation from [the town administrator] or anybody else. We need to be clear about what we’re doing with town money.”

Ms. Scott noted some of the repairs have never been approved by voters. After asking several questions, selectman Ron DiOrio made a motion to approve the matching fund plan from Mr. Dutton, although Ms. Scott said she still had questions.

This led to a tense exchange between Ms. Scott and chairman Greg Coogan.

“Can I recommend that if you have these many questions, you go over it ahead of time with [Mr. Dutton],” Mr. Coogan said. “The rest of us are ready to move. I think you’re holding the other four of us hostage, because you’re putting us to sleep with your questions. I’m interested in gathering information, but I also think the rest of us are losing focus,” he added.

“This belongs in open session, so the public knows we’re looking out for them,” Ms. Scott replied testily.

“When you were the chairman, you ran the meetings how you wanted to . . . and I run the meetings the way I see fit,” Mr. Coogan shot back.

“There are times when we have to listen to each other. And I chose to air these questions here in the interest of the public,” Ms. Scott said.

In the end selectmen voted 5-0 to approve Mr. Dutton’s plan with no changes.