At a special town meeting next Tuesday Oak Bluffs selectmen will ask town voters to erase a $238,000 deficit in a single stroke.

Ordered by the Massachusetts Department of Revenue in January to slash its spending a quarter of a million dollars after town revenue for the first two quarters of fiscal year 2011 failed to match up with projections, selectmen have scrambled in the past two months to find potential savings in the town budget. The town has still not sent taxpayers their third or fourth quarter tax bills, and will be unable to do so until the town sets its tax rate after Tuesday’s meeting. Voters will be presented with a single article that calls for a quarter million dollars in cuts across town departments. If the article is defeated, town administrator Michael Dutton said on Wednesday the town would need to schedule another town meeting and present a similar warrant.

“Bottom line is that we need to cut about $240,000 before we can set a tax rate,” Mr. Dutton said. “We can’t send out tax bills until we have an approved tax rate.”

Many of the proposed savings on the warrant article come from leaving vacant positions open for the remainder of the fiscal year which ends on June 30. Positions affected by the article include 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 the heavy equipment operator. The cumulative savings from leaving the positions vacant is $179,122.

In a letter to the editor published in today’s edition, the library trustees say that they plan to amend the warrant article by adding $12,000 back in for their budget. Trustees say this will enable them to hire a reference librarian, without which they may lose their accreditation. The finance committee has also protested the continued lack of a finance director and town accountant and this past Tuesday selectman Ron DiOrio acknowledged the unpopularity of some of the board’s decisions.

“You don’t make friends during a budget crunch,” he said.

In addition to personnel cuts the town is asking voters to approve other cost-cutting measures that include turning off a number of streetlights and reducing the town’s budget for insurance, travel and administrative costs. The town will save an additional $21,500 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. Voters will not see the individual cost-cutting measures reflected on the warrant but instead will be asked to approve new budget amounts for line items in the various town departments.

In all the cuts total $249,666.

On Tuesday at a special joint meeting of the selectmen and the finance committee town leaders turned their attention to fiscal year 2012, which before last week was slated to run a $1.1 million deficit. At last week’s meeting selectmen agreed to impose a hiring freeze for the coming year, a move that affects several town departments including the library as well as the police department which had hoped to hire an animal control officer. Selectmen were split about whether to leave the finance director position unfilled for the coming year.

One town department volunteered major reductions in services; highway superintendant Richard Combra Jr. presented selectmen with $126,000 in cuts to his department. Last week selectmen told Mr. Combra that the town would be unable to pay for a new rubbish truck and front loader which Mr. Combra had budgeted for fiscal year 2012. Mr. Combra has removed his request for the new front loader but said the town needs the truck.

“We’re going to cross our fingers and pray that the loader can make it through another year but we need two rubbish trucks to operate the rubbish program and the one that we have now isn’t going to make it through the summer,” he said.

Instead Mr. Combra proposed reducing the hours of the town custodian, closing the Kennebec avenue rest rooms from November to April, closing the local drop-off for three days a week from November to April and consolidating with the parks and recreation department, merging the parks foreman and the highway maintenance foreman into one position.

“I want to thank Richie for digging so deep and working so hard to try to help us with this situation,” said selectman Kathy Burton.

“It’s easy to say let’s cut their department, just don’t cut my department and that’s basically what everyone is saying,” agreed selectman Greg Coogan. “[Mr. Combra] has stepped up to the plate, and it means we’re not going to have roads paved.”

Selectmen also discussed merging the town and the Oak Bluffs school’s IT departments as well as level funding the fire department budget which had called for a $70,000 increase in the 2012 budget including a $30,000 increase in the fire chief’s salary, from $12,000 to $42,000.

Emotions flared during a discussion of possible “restructuring” at the council on aging. Director Roger Wey defended the group’s work, which he says serves 2,000 meals a year at the senior center.

“You want to take this away from the people who built this town and built this country,” Mr. Wey said. “I don’t understand, we’ve got one of the smallest budgets in the town and you’re attacking the council on aging’s budget.”

“Nobody’s attacking anything,” said selectman and board chairman Duncan Ross.

“I don’t know why we’re targeting such a small department,” said selectman Gail Barmakian. “I don’t see a reason or a justification for this.”

A discussion about police benefits also turned confrontational when Mr. DiOrio proposed cutting funding for the Quinn bill. The town budgets $165,000 yearly to support the program that provides education for police officers. Half of that amount the state agreed to reimburse in their original agreement, but in recent years as state funding has fallen the town has had to pay almost the entire amount. Mr. Coogan bluntly called it an unfunded mandate.

“You’re dangerously close to having the union think that you’re bargaining their contract right now on this floor,” said police chief Erik Blake, who was in attendance. “Dangerously close.”

Although selectmen had hoped to avoid Proposition 2 1/2 overrides and hand voters a balanced budget for approval at the April town meeting, they conceded on Tuesday that at least $250,000 in necessary street paving may lead to the need for an override ballot question.

“Every dollar we save right now on not fixing infrastructure we essentially put off a five-dollar bill down the road,” said Mr. Coogan. “We can’t afford to keep putting it off.”