Oak Bluffs raced to balance its current town budget at the finish line of the fiscal year, after voters at Tuesday’s special town meeting moved to transfer more than $216,000 to cover shortfalls.

About 100 residents appeared at the Oak Bluffs School on Tuesday to vote on the six-article warrant. It was the town’s third special town meeting since January.

The scramble included taking $106,000 from the town’s so-called “rainy day” fund to pay for unforeseen health insurance costs.

Town administrator Michael Dutton explained the deficit in the town’s budgeted health insurance.

“There’s a shortfall there for two reasons,” he said. “One is that we had 12 or 15 changes — folks coming in and signing up or changing from single to family coverage. The other reason is that when we budgeted, we did it before we do the accurate retiree expense for health care, so we have an overage there.”

Before the vote to approve the transfers Mr. Dutton said there was just over $1.2 million in the fund.

Oak Bluffs resident Charlie Miner was not convinced that the town faced an emergency that required dipping into the fund.

“I’m not in favor of taking money out of the stabilization, or what some people would call the ‘rainy day’ fund, mainly because I don’t think we’ve had the rainy day yet,” he said. “I know things have been bad, but I think they’re bad because of budgeting and expense overruns, not because of revenue shortfalls, because I don’t see any decrease in our revenue.”

Nevertheless voters handily approved the transfers.

The town was in a less generous mood with the Cottage City Historic District. In a surprise move, voters rejected an article to approve a map that would include the Denniston House in the historic district. Voters previously approved the inclusion of the property in the district at the annual town meeting but the framers of that article failed to include a map.

Town counsel Ron Rappaport said that the state attorney general’s office would not accept the proposed change without an approved map and Tuesday’s article was expected to be a formal confirmation of that vote. But it seemed voters had had a change of heart since April.

“I think we really have to be cautious about this, I don’t know what’s going to happen to this property,” said Herbert Combra Jr. “Banks are trying to sell it, they can’t sell it. . . The town is in bad shape financially, and I’m just afraid that we’re going to get married into something here that we’re going to be regretting for a long time. I know contractors who are looking into buying the property, but with that designation they’re not going to touch it.”

Historical commission chairman Dave Wilson clarified that the designation came with no financial obligation to the town.

“What this does is simply say, we think this is an important property and it’s part of our cultural heritage and worth preserving,” he said. Voters rejected the article 33-52.

After the meeting Mr. Rappaport said that the vote not to accept the map didn’t necessarily negate the town’s previous vote to include the property in the historic district; the article could be placed again on the next town warrant, he said.

The warrant also included a technical article to appropriate $3,000 to purchase easements for the proposed roundabout at the four-way blinker intersection — a requirement for construction to go ahead, though the town does not expect to have to purchase any easements. It was approved.

The town voters rejected a request to join the Dukes County integrated pest management program.

They also rejected a petitioned article to raise $34,000 for the purchase of a surf rake to clean town beaches, but not before several impassioned speeches about the state of town beaches.

Chris Bonner said that the town potentially faced civil litigation if someone stepped on the assortment of broken glass and pieces of metal on the beach. Jacqueline Hunt conceded that the price tag was too high in light of the town’s finances but denounced the state of the beaches.

“I’m appalled that the beach is the way it is,” she said, “I don’t go there anymore because it’s not pleasant.”

Highway department Richard Combra Jr. found the claims somewhat unbelievable after the recent spreading of sand dredged from Sengekontacket on Pay and Inkwell Beaches.

“I think you’re painting a little bit of a drastic, unrealistic picture of that beach down there,” he said. “The perception that the beach is just littered with glass and trash is just simply not true. There are some pebbles and some stones, but I don’t know if you people have been down there in the past couple weeks. Maybe you should take a walk and take a look because it’s certainly not as bad as it’s being portrayed tonight.”

The town roundly rejected the article.