In what is likely to become a common theme, the Oak Bluffs selectmen spent much of their Tuesday meeting discussing the town’s budget problems.

Earlier this month the Massachusetts Department of Revenue directed the town to slash $238,000 from its budget by June after the town’s first two quarters of revenue did not match up with projections. While the debate about where the cuts will come from continues, the community development committee has proposed creating an ad hoc committee that would work across town departments to evaluate which town services are the most essential and begin to tackle what selectmen have described as the town’s longer term structural financial problems.

While she applauded the effort, selectman Gail Barmakian questioned the need for yet another committee in what she characterized as a disorganized effort to end town deficits.

“The problem is everyone seems to be going in their own direction without communication,” she said.

Ms. Barmakian also criticized any effort to tackle the town’s fiscal woes without a town accountant. Town finance director Paul Manzi died last October.

“I don’t want to have another futile exercise that’s not meaningful,” Ms. Barmakian said. “You need to know how the financial system works.”

Selectman Greg Coogan described the effort as “absolutely essential.”

“We’re in a new world here; we need you desperately,” he told community development committee member Renee Balter. “The more input the better.”

While town leaders cast a wary eye toward next year’s budget, town administrator Michael Dutton said the books had not yet been closed for fiscal year 2010 although he expects the town to do so in the coming days. Ms. Barmakian said she is “impatient” with the progress.

For fiscal year 2011 Mr. Dutton said he had identified almost $184,000 in cuts but that the town would still need to cut around $56,000 before the third and fourth quarter tax rates were set.

“When are we going to do that?” asked an exasperated Ms. Barmakian. “The last meeting we had we were supposed to do it at a Thursday meeting, then at a Tuesday meeting — my concern and what I’ve been talking about since August is getting the tax bills out and getting some revenue and knowing where we’re at. With any decision I need to know where we are to make a responsible financial decision.”

Mr. Dutton said because of the town’s delayed third and fourth quarter tax collections it would have to borrow around $3 million from the state through a revenue anticipation note which would be paid off as soon as taxes are collected.

“I know more painfully than anybody that not having an accountant and not having a finance director is . . . painful,” he said.

He said the town is in the process of contracting an accountant to help it through its fiscal morass, describing one firm as “very interested” in helping.

“We’re throwing this all on Michael’s shoulders, which he certainly doesn’t deserve,” said Mr. Coogan.

In the effort to scare up revenue, selectmen took some local business owners to task for failing to pay business license fees, which range from $50 to $100. At least 40 Oak Bluffs businesses did not pay their license fees in 2010.

Mr. Ross proposed increasing the penalty for the town’s license truants.

“The fine should be very substantial, because it’s completely unfair to people who have business licenses,” he said. “That’s one of my pet peeves.”

Mr. Ross also had sharp words for the Gazette in reaction to an editorial in last week’s edition about the financial crisis.

“I think that it’s full of misinformation and it’s very unprofessional,” he said, singling out editor Julia Wells for criticism. “[She] did not have the courtesy to call the town administrator Michael Dutton and talk to him . . . I think she needs to go back and take a journalism course.”

In other business, commercial fisherman Bill Alwardt reported that the dredging dewatering site on the pond side of the little bridge had caused a large volume of silt to flow back into Sengekontacket which has resulted in a new flat exposed at low tide. Mr. Alwardt said the area was formerly three feet deep and the site of a quahaug relay that has been buried. He asked that the silt be removed.