After a month of wrestling with how to close a $238,000 budget gap, the Oak Bluffs selectmen finally took out their scalpels and began to make the required cuts on Tuesday at a special selectmen’s meeting.

A month ago the Massachusetts Department of Revenue ordered the town to slash its budget by almost a quarter of a million dollars after its revenue for the first two quarters of fiscal year 2011 did not match up with projections. On Tuesday selectmen voted to tighten the town’s belt and leave several town positions unfilled while managing to avoid layoffs. The proposed cuts will need to be approved by Oak Bluffs voters at a special meeting on Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. at the Oak Bluffs School.

The first, and perhaps most symbolic, cut selectmen approved for the special town meeting warrant was $9,544 in savings from the elimination of selected street lights. Selectman Kathy Burton said that the highway superintendant and chief of police would look into which town lights were the most appropriate to turn off.

“We’re looking at specific lights there,” said selectman Greg Coogan. “We’re not talking about just shutting all the lights in town off.”

Next selectmen moved to take $21,500 off town books by reimbursing the town’s ambulance service’s fuel expenses from the town’s ambulance reserve fund rather than paying for it out of the general fund. The selectmen also moved to cut $8,300 budgeted for insurance and $3,000 budgeted for town postage.

“I think if we make a concerted effort to reduce our postage and use e-mail where we can I think we can cut down,” said Mr. Dutton.

Mr. Dutton eyed an additional $3,000 in cuts from official travel expenses.

“We now have an operating car in Woods Hole so those who have to travel, they don’t need to bring an automobile,” Mr. Dutton said. “Pending the vote I’ll be notifying the department heads that we won’t be entertaining anything but critical and urgent travel.”

Selectmen could not agree on a proposal to cut $5,000 from a budgeted $15,000 to staff the seasonal information kiosk near the Steamship Authority pier.

“We are a tourist town that spends nothing on economic development,” said selectman Ron DiOrio. With more than $300,000 raised by the town’s added meals and room occupancy taxes approved at last year’s annual and special town meetings, Mr. DiOrio insisted that the town could afford to provide modest services for visitors. Ms. Burton added that the kiosk is a vital tool for orienting tourists arriving by boat.

Finance committee chairman Bill McGrath disagreed. “I would submit to you that most of the people on the boats have one of these,” he said, brandishing a smart phone. “To cut a third of an information kiosk budget doesn’t seem all that significant to me.”

Selectmen decided against cutting funding for the kiosk.

The sharpest debate on Tuesday came during a discussion about leaving a number of town positions unfilled for the remainder of the fiscal year, including two teaching aide positions at the Oak Bluffs School, the town’s reference librarian, the zoning board of appeals administrator, the town finance director and heavy equipment operator. The cumulative savings from leaving the positions vacant is $179,122.

“It’s the worst kind of management we can do,” said Mr. McGrath, who asked why the selectmen did not instead look to cut services rather then leave those positions empty which happened to be vacated by chance.

“I don’t think we’re in a position to cut services when we’re having a special town meeting on Feb. 22 and we have to advertise on Thursday for that meeting,” said Ms. Burton “I don’t think we can cut services in three days, I just don’t think that’s logical or reasonable.”

Selectmen moved to leave the positions unfilled.

At the end of the meeting selectmen went into executive session to discuss possible layoffs and restructuring at the council on aging, but emerged without any further cuts. Afterwards though, Mr. Dutton warned that the town would be looking at a number of “restructuring possibilities” across departments for the fiscal year 2012 budget. Meanwhile, selectmen proposed instead to make up the remaining shortfall by reducing the wastewater fees it pays for town buildings. In fiscal year 2011 the town budgeted $18,000 to pay for wastewater disposal. Mr. DiOrio said when the wastewater plant was originally built the town agreed to pay for half of it, but by paying to use it on an annual basis it is paying more than its fair share. On Wednesday the wastewater commission voted to reduce the town’s fees by $9,000.

On Tuesday selectmen also authorized Mr. Dutton to enter into a contract with the accounting firm Sullivan and Rogers Company to help with coverage following town finance director Paul Manzi’s death in October. Mr. Dutton said the accountants had proposed to work for $125 an hour and that he expected them to work for the town four to five hours a week until the end of the fiscal year in June.

To Mr. Coogan June 30 could not come quickly enough.

“We have limped along without these positions and unfortunately I think we have to limp along for the rest of the fiscal year,” he said.