Hartford — Town officials say there was a “fatal flaw” in the way they presented a local option tax to Town Meeting voters in March; as a result, the state will not approve the tax, which will cost the town’s coffers an estimated $250,000.

The delay could give the town an opportunity to enact more changes to its charter, Hartford Selectboard members said during a Tuesday evening meeting, but there was disagreement about how to move forward with those changes.

Last week, when Selectboard members first heard that the tax, which was approved on a 1,641-1,309 townwide vote, would not be approved by the state during the current Legislative session, there was confusion about why.

But on Tuesday, interim Town Manager Pat MacQueen told Selectboard members that the problem amounted to a failure to give the public proper access to the proposed changes.

“The language was not noticed in the public hearings, and it was not in the voting booth, which it needed to be,” MacQueen said. “That was the fatal flaw.”

At a Jan. 19 public hearing, the Selectboard articulated a summary of what the charter changes would be, but did not make public documents that showed the actual language of the changes. And when voters entered the polling booths on election day, they again voted on a summary of the changes, without copies of the actual language being present.

Another procedural question about the town’s possible failure to provide full documentation to the state in a timely manner proved not to be a substantive problem, MacQueen said.

“I don’t believe that was the flaw that stopped the process,” he said.

Denise Diehl, the government staffer who assists the House Committee on Government Operations, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

In addition to voting in favor of the local option tax, Town Meeting voters also approved two other charter changes, one of which established a capital fund to receive local option tax money and another that moved failed budget votes from the traditional Floor Meeting to a second Australian ballot vote.

Selectboard members expressed an interest in bringing the measures back before voters during the November election, and also possibly introducing new charter changes.

“I was initially very upset,” Selectboard Vice Chairwoman Rebecca White said. “I was very disheartened that we had to bring this back to the people, but after contemplating it more thoroughly, I see this as a big opportunity for the community to look at this with fresh eyes.”

“There’s a bunch of work that our last round of charter change revisions did not get to,” Selectman Simon Dennis said.

Dennis mentioned removing language about the town manager’s contract from the charter and eliminating language that could be redundant of state statutes.

Other possible charter changes that were discussed included moving the Floor Meeting to the Saturday before Town Meeting day, which would combine it into Community Day.

But there was disagreement and uncertainty about what new charter changes should be considered, and what process should be followed to consider them.

Selectwoman Sandi Mariotti said the town should exercise caution to learn “what the next steps are, so that we don’t make any mistakes (and) so that we don’t have another fatal flaw.”

Selectboard Chairman Dick Grassi expressed concern that adding more charter changes into the mix could muddy the picture and overwhelm voters.

“I question how many items we want to put on that ballot in November,” he said.

Grassi asked MacQueen to investigate whether the town needs to hold a new set of public hearings on the changes that were approved at Town Meeting, and to use that information to decide what the scope of the work should be.

Board members didn’t discuss the possibility that the local option tax could fail a townwide vote in November. It passed with nearly 56 percent of the vote in March, but a similar measure failed in 2013, when more than 62 percent voted against it.

Selectboard members also heard different points of view about who should take up the work of amending the charter.

Former Selectman F.X. Flinn, who served on a previous Charter Commission that streamlined language in the charter in 2011, suggested that the Selectboard appoint a small group of people with expert knowledge of the charter.

Selectman Simon Dennis said he would support that idea, if the group operated in a transparent manner as a public body.

But two members of the Charter Commission that developed the current changes — Scott Johnson and Lannie Collins — said that because the changes had not been accepted by the state, their committee still was in existence.

“If you choose to terminate the committee please let us know, because we’re here waiting to do this work,” Johnson said.

Grassi asked for the issue to be placed on the agenda for the Selectboard’s May 10 meeting.

Matt Hongoltz-Hetling can be reached at mhonghet@vnews.com or 603-727-3211.