Residents should face cuts in services after rejecting the proposed operating budget at Town Meeting, said some town officials at the board of selectmen’s meeting on April 2.

“The public voted for the default budget. We need to show people out there that services will be cut if you go with the default,” said Selectman Donna Osborne. “If we don’t cut our services and go with the default, (voters will) go with the default next year and say, ‘Well, they made it work last year.’”

Osborne’s comments came during a discussion of how selectmen could grant 3.5 percent pay increases to town employees while operating on a default budget.

Selectmen did vote for the pay increases, but only after each department submitted other line items that could be sacrificed to make way for the raises.

Town Administrator Fred Ventresco supplied selectmen with a spreadsheet detailing potential cuts.

Some of the adjustments came fairly easily. The department of public works, for example, could take $13,000 out of its sand and salt budget following an unusually mild winter, Director of Public Works Carl Knapp said.

Other town departments faced tougher choices. Though the library required $4,121 to meet the pay increase, the money would have to come out of the library’s book budget, said library board of trustees Chairman Raymond Kelly.

The Weare Public Library is already 30,000 volumes short of the number expected of a town of comparable size, said library director Christine Hague.

The parks and recreation department would need to shift $740 within its budget to accommodate raises, Ventresco said. The department could achieve the difference by cutting some services, said parks and recreation Vice Chairman Chuck Metcalf.

“I don’t think it’s any secret, it will just mean a reduction in services, in the number of hours the park is open or in how we treat the ballfields,” Metcalf said.

Town Clerk Evelyn Connor said she could compensate for raises by taking $4,000 out of the election line in her budget, while Ventresco said the $2,900 needed for raises in the selectmen’s office could come from a maintenance capital reserve fund.

Police Chief Greg Begin agreed town employees should receive their expected raises, and that the money should come from service cuts in the departments.

“People have to realize that when we’re at default we’re going to miss out on services,” said Begin.

Begin said he had already shifted money within his budget to furnish the pay increases. He said most of the money was to pay for a part-time prosecutor, along with other adjustments in the department budget including potential cuts to the D.A.R.E. program.

Voters rejected the town’s $4.3 million operating budget 564-709 at the town voting of March 13. The move forces Weare to operate on a default budget of $4.2 million.

Selectmen had already cut the budget prior to the deliberative session of Town Meeting by $44,000, the amount needed for a 3.5 percent pay raise for town employees.

The town had also received advice from its legal council that a default budget couldn’t include raises not obliged by contract, Ventresco said. That advice had not been solicited, Ventresco said.