SUNAPEE — Two full-time town employees have lost their jobs and public services are being reduced in order to make the nearly $800,000 in cuts required for the municipality to operate under a default budget.

At Town Meeting in March, Sunapee voters rejected the proposed $11.03 million budget, 516-494.

Instead of going before voters with a new spending proposal, the Selectboard opted to adopt a default budget of $10.1 million, plus certain adjustments required by law, for the remainder of the calendar year.

To stay within the default budget, the board approved laying off two administrators proposed by Town Manager Shannon Martinez. The land use office staff and Martinez will pick up the tasks, Martinez wrote in an email to the Valley News.

“This will be a heavy lift and will cause significant service disruptions to our residents,” Martinez said. “It will also undermine the success of the last couple of years in terms of building and deploying resident-centered services.”

Staffing at Dewey Beach will be reduced this season, which begins May 25 and ends on Labor Day. Georges Mills Beach will go unstaffed.

The Recreation Department did not respond to Valley News’ phone calls or emails.

Town officials planned to close the bathrooms at Georges Mills Beach for the season, but after residents voiced objections at an April 21 Selectboard meeting, the board moved to allocate dollars from the Recreation Revolving Fund to keep the bathrooms open.

Craig Heino, the town’s buildings and grounds director, is “trying to identify a cleaning service that will augment the weekly cleaning schedule” but as of May 5 had not been unsuccessful, according to Selectboard meeting minutes.

Due to the staff decreases, the front window at the Town Offices, where residents get beach passes and transfer station stickers, will only be open on Tuesdays. The information booth located on Route 11 will be closed for the season.

To fill in the gaps, Abbott Library staff will assist residents in applying for beach passes and transfer station stickers online, which are available at https://tinyurl.com/4evvs5sp.

“We will support the needs of the community wherever we can because we do have the ability and the staff who have the expertise to do so,” Jeff Cabral, the library’s director, said in a phone interview.

The library saw a $65,000 reduction in its annual budget, but since it has other sources of funding, namely the Abbott Library Foundation and Friends of Abbott Library, it is “not planning on cutting any positions or services,” Cabral said.

The library was recruiting for an assistant director but has delayed the search to get through the budget year.

In other cuts, the town has postponed maintenance projects, “which will likely double in cost by the time they reappear on any work plan,” Martinez said.

The highway department will no longer partner with the school district to plow, and the police officers’ training budget is being reduced.

School and police officials did not respond to requests for comment on how the cuts would affect them.

Martinez said town officials were reluctant to speak with media because of “an active group of residents who frequently spread misinformation and use personal attacks to stymie the work of good governance.”

Over time, some residents have created “a toxic dynamic that has made open dialogue extremely difficult.”

Selectboard members did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

Lisa Hoekstra, who was among the residents opposing the proposed budget, said the cuts are needed to help right-size town government.

“As far as the cuts that have been made, I think they were warranted, timely, and I’m not yet convinced that there’s going to be severe changes in services because I feel we were overstaffed to begin with,” Hoekstra said in a phone interview.

Had voters approved the budget in March, excluding all other warrant articles, it would have resulted in an estimated municipal tax rate of about $2.51 per $1,000 of property value, a 3% increase over the prior year.

Hoekstra is part of Sunapee Advocacy Group for Engagement, or SAGE, a group aimed at educating the community on town governance and “challenging” town officials.

“There’s been a lack of accountability and transparency and our ‘no’ votes on the budget communicated that,” Hoekstra said.

“This is a great opportunity to build a volunteer troupe,” she added. “Some of the things that might not be available could be filled by volunteers stepping up to help.”

Emma Roth-Wells can be reached at erothwells@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.

CORRECTION: Excluding all other warrant articles, the proposed budget Sunapee voters rejected at Town Meeting would have resulted in an estimated municipal tax rate of $2.51 per $1,000 of property value, a 3% increase over the rate for the prior year. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the estimated increase to the tax rate the proposed budget would have caused.