In their first meeting since cutting a quarter-million dollars from their fiscal year 2011 budget, Oak Bluffs selectmen turned their attention to next year’s budget and the April town meeting. After a disastrous town meeting last spring which saw voters reject 11 of 12 Proposition 2 1/2 overrides as well as a hotel room tax that sent the selectmen back to the budget chopping block, the board has decided to simplify their approach.

Instead of presenting voters with a so-called “laundry list” of warrant articles (last year there were 30), some of which are built into the budget, selectmen have instead decided to present a painfully bare-bones balanced budget and ask voters to approve subsequent overrides to pay for town services.

“It’s very different than what we’ve done in the past, where we’ve had the overrides built into the budget and we’ve had to come back and do a hatchet job on it,” selectman Ron DiOrio said on Wednesday. “I think we’ve done the hatchet job going in.”

The board conducted its meeting one member short after selectman Gail Barmakian walked out for what she felt was an improperly posted meeting according to the Open Meeting Law. The town did not post an agenda for the meeting beforehand, but the four other selectmen voted to proceed citing the need to move ahead with the FY 2012 budget and a looming deficit, which, before recent weeks of whittling, stood at $1.1 million.

At the past two meetings selectmen proposed a townwide hiring freeze expected to save over $300,000. Further proposed cuts to the highway department, including $126,000 proposed by highway superintendant Richard Combra, and a consolidation with the parks and recreation department, cuts to the town’s information technology services, and level funding of the fire department, which had proposed $70,000 in new spending next year, helped to close that gap before Tuesday’s selectmen’s meeting.

On Tuesday town administrator Michael Dutton proposed further cuts, eyeing seasonal employees and town employee salaries, but warned that the town’s budget was approaching “bare-bones.”

Among the proposed cuts are $8,000 from the town treasurer’s budget for tax title legal services, an $8,000 conservation commission line item for Sailing Camp maintenance (offset by a $5,000 addition to highway department budget), $2,300 in cuts to administrative salaries and $12,500 in master planning expenses at the planning board, a $4,000 cut in patrolmen’s salaries, a $6,340 reduction in ambulance service shift pay, a $3,000 reduction in legal and technical assistance for the building inspector, a $15,000 cut in the town’s share of the Martha’s Vineyard Shellfish Group, $50,000 of salary cuts at the Oak Bluffs School that would fund two unfilled teaching aide positions, a $4,000 cut in seasonal employee salaries at the board of health, a $7,750 reduction in administrative salaries at the council on aging and a $12,501 cut in salaries at the library.

Mr. Dutton said that he was still looking for $32,000 of savings in the already scoured budget but that he expected to have a completed balanced budget to present to selectmen by next week.

Many of the cuts, including $230,000 worth of road resurfacing, could be restored if the voters decide to override them, but selectmen say they would be comfortable with the budget the way it is.

Selectman DiOrio defended the new approach.

“The change that we’re making — and I think it’s a great change — is we’re going forward with a balanced budget and simply saying to the voters, we can live with this but there is going to be a reduction in service,” he said. “Now if you want those services returned here are the overrides and you have the right to vote yay or nay.”

Not all departments saw reductions on Tuesday though. The town’s finance committee, which has been operating without a finance director since Paul Manzi’s death in October, will boost its reserve fund from $43,750 to $60,000.

“The rationale [is that], especially when times are very slim and most of our departments are working without any room for breakdown or error, that it would make more sense to increase the reserve fund so we could have a pool of money the finance committee could use if we had a boiler blow or an emergency expense,” explained Mr. Dutton.

Health insurance premiums also account for an ever-growing share of town expenses. The town expects to pay almost $400,000 more this year than last to insure town employees.

“We’re looking at some of the benefits to employees and the town to switching to health savings accounts,” Mr. Dutton said, admitting that such a switch would be subject to collective bargaining and review by the personnel board. Town pensions also jumped $40,000 this year.

Also on Tuesday selectmen discussed draft proposals for seasonal stationary peddlers’ regulations. The town currently issues three permits, one on the big bridge and two on the little bridge. Among the proposed regulations was a requirement that license holders operate for 20 days in July and 20 days in August, and that a new, $1,000 license transfer fee be imposed on new peddlers in addition to the yearly license fee which the selectmen propose raising to $2,500 from $1,000. The biggest change, though, will likely be to the food. While peddlers are now only allowed to sell prepackaged food, selectmen have proposed expanding the beachside cuisine to include grilled food as well, such as hamburgers.

“Part of the reason for expanding it is because finding a parking space at the beach is extremely difficult,” said Mr. Ross. “We don’t believe that people are going to come into town to buy lunch and then go back to the beach to find a parking space again.”

Finally, as the town begins to pay down bonds for past capital projects, Mr. DiOrio said that it would be wise to set priorities for future projects, one of which he singled out for particular consideration.

“If we’re really forthright about protecting the Lagoon and the Pond then we really do have to look at sewering,” he said. “I know there are other issues that are pressing but I would submit to you that that is the critical issue that really requires our attention.”

On a lighter note Mr. DiOrio welcomed his fellow Vineyarders back from afar.

“I was here on Island last week and I want to welcome everyone home,” he said.