Severe budget cutting has begun in cash-strapped Oak Bluffs as town leaders zero in on options for closing the gap on a $245,000 shortfall in the current fiscal year.

But Oak Bluffs senior citizens found strength in numbers on Wednesday night when more than 60 elderly residents attended a contentious selectmen’s meeting to loudly protest deep cuts to the town council on aging. As a result the drastic cuts — which call for eliminating the council’s entire staff of three and replacing it with a single program coordinator — are on hold for now. The $60,000 cost-saving measure was proposed by the town finance committee, which has been meeting regularly with the town selectmen and personnel board to come up with a plan for shaving the $245,000 from the $24 million town budget.

Susan Von Steiger: Why Is it always seniors, youth, poor? — Ivy Ashe

On Wednesday night the finance committee presented selectmen with their recommendations, and from the outset chairman Steve Auerbach tried to put the best face on a difficult plan. “Some of the budget cuts, for example here at the council on aging, need to be made, not to eliminate the council on aging but to save the council on aging from more drastic budget cuts down the road,” he said.

The meeting was held at the council on aging building and packed with seniors who were outspoken in their opposition to the plan.

“You can’t have enough volunteers here to do what you’re talking about and you have a person qualified here already doing what you’re going to hire somebody to do,” said 94-year-old Charles (Cee Jay) Jones. Mr. Jones was referring to council on aging director Roger Wey, who vigorously denounced the proposal that would see his position eliminated.

“I was shocked to have this proposal presented without even interviewing any of the staff at the senior center,” Mr. Wey said. “We have an experienced staff that knows the resources the seniors need and you’re going to take that away from the seniors who worked all their lives . . . It’s absurd. . . Don’t put the burden on the backs of the seniors.”

Mr. Auerbach’s icy reception from the audience grew more contentious after he responded to Mr. Wey.

“At the risk of being unpopular I have to say, Roger, this is classic demagoguery on your part, scaring the seniors,” he said.

Susan von Steiger, outreach coordinator for 15 years at the council, said her position, slated for the chopping block, serves a vital function in tending at-risk elders in their homes, coordinating with the VNA, elder services and Community Services along with obtaining critical grants that the agency relied on.

“I realize all of you are in a hard position,” she said to the selectmen. “But please, there is something I don’t understand: Why is it always the seniors? Why is it always the youth? Why is it always the poor? Why?”

For an hour and a half selectmen listened to the testy outpouring from the seniors.

“What I’m trying to make clear to the selectmen is that what I heard you present, getting rid of staff and getting a coordinator with volunteers, sounds like the end of the senior center,” said Conrad Gaskin. “It can’t work with one paid person doing the work of three and the volunteers that are currently here. It cannot be done,” he added.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing about the senior center, I think it’s tragic,” said John Reagan. “I think the senior center might as well close the door if you go ahead with this proposal.”

Finance committee member Bill McGrath tried to put the entire issue in context.

“I tend to agree with you that the senior center is too valuable to cut but we can’t afford everything we do in the town,” he said. “Put on your thinking caps and come up with some suggestions that we can consider that will either result in cuts or result in increased taxes so that the essential services of the town, however you define them, are funded. It’s that simple and, of course, that complicated.”

In the end selectmen were persuaded by the turnout and voted to put off indefinitely the cuts to the council on aging while the town studies the issue further.

Other recommendations adopted Wednesday by the selectmen included using $25,000 from the ambulance transport fund to pay for ambulance fuel as well slashing $25,000 from the selectmen’s budget, including $16,500 in stipends. Selectmen also agreed to find $25,000 in savings in town health insurance and voted to start each department’s budget at zero for costs associated with travel for training and conferences, while department heads identify which of those costs are mandatory. The town had budgeted $96,000 for such expenditures. Selectmen tabled a recommendation to cut $15,000 from the town clerk’s budget after testimony from town clerk Deborah deBettencourt Ratcliff.

The other controversial move was a vote to cut a $45,000 reference librarian position from the town library budget. Library director Danguole Budris pleaded with selectmen to allow her staff to identify other areas for cutting without having to forego the position for the year.

“I understand that the town needs to cut money but we didn’t have time to discuss it with the personnel board before they made their recommendation,” she said. “I think it would be best if you would defer to the library and come up with a sum of money that you would like the library to cut.”

But selectmen decided the debate about the library had gone on long enough and voted to cut the $45,000.

“We’ve been doing this for a long time and I would rather keep it to the reference librarian,” said selectman Gail Barmakian. “I’d be open if you came up with something else in a week or so but I’m inclined to just do it. It’s been going on too long.”