How to make up for a major budget shortfall discovered last month will be the topic of a special town meeting next week in Aquinnah. As the result of a $101,564 projected deficit reported to town officials at a tax hearing Dec. 9, the state has instructed the town not to issue its third-quarter tax bills until the budget is balanced.

The special town meeting will begin Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 7 p.m. at the Aquinnah old town hall. A quorum of 36 voters, or 10 per cent of the town’s registered voters, is needed. Town moderator Michael Hebert will preside.

All three articles on the warrant relate to the budget shortfall. In articles one and two, voters will be asked to choose between two options for balancing the budget. Article three will ask voters whether to transfer $23,500 from the town’s free cash account to the reserve fund. The transfer would provide a buffer for any year-end expenses, since the third and fourth-quarter tax bills will likely not be due until the end of May.

The first option (article one) for balancing the budget is to appropriate the entire deficit amount from the town’s general stabilization fund, which now contains $208,784. The second option (article two) is to appropriate $57,743 from the stabilization fund and make up the remaining $43,820 through wide-ranging budget cuts.

Both of those articles would require a two-thirds majority vote.

Each town department was asked in December to identify expenses that could wait until the next fiscal year. The budget cuts proposed in article two include $11,577 from the police department, $7,000 from data processing, $7,114 from public works, $4,000 from the fire department, and smaller cuts in nine other areas, ranging from about $200 to $3,000.

Town officials have cited several causes for the budget shortfall this year, including a drop in tax revenue and local receipts since fiscal year 2013, a borrowing note that was paid in full without being budgeted for, and confusion resulting from the transition to a new treasurer and new accountant in 2014.

Town assessor Angela Cywinski told the Gazette in December that a “huge windfall” from people paying their back taxes in 2013 was not seen again in 2014.

Town administrator Adam Wilson said this week that delinquent tax accounts in Aquinnah may have contributed to the shortfall this year, but he did not believe they were a primary cause. A few years ago the town initiated a more aggressive approach to researching accounts and pursuing delinquent taxpayers.

“Many people came forward and paid,” Mr. Wilson said. “For some of those people it was a substantial amount of money.” But he also speculated that after paying off their accounts, they did not have enough money to pay their current taxes, contributing to the shortfall.

Town accountant Kimberly Brown added in an email this week that local receipts in fiscal year 2014 — from parking, leases and other sources — were about $53,000 less than the year before.