In a second night of discussions, the Beaufort County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday found few items they have been willing to cut from the county manager’s proposed $50.9 million spending plan.

After several straw votes proposing cuts to the county’s proposed $370,918 culture-and-recreation budget ended in a tie because of the absence of one of its members, the board decided to continue its review next week of the 2011-2012 budget proposed by County Manager Paul Spruill.

Commissioner Jay McRoy on Monday requested and received permission to be absent from Tuesday’s discussion to attend to a family matter.

“The next time we meet, make up your mind about what you want to do,” said board Chairman Jerry Langley after a series of failed motions and tie votes concerning chamber of commerce, library, recreation and Veterans Memorial Park spending.

During Tuesday’s 2 1/2-hour meeting, the commissioners trimmed $19,234 from the $424,288 expansion budget request presented by Spruill.

Those savings were in addition to $21,000 removed from the coming fiscal year’s expansion budget request for a replacement vehicle for the county’s emergency-management office.

The commissioners, earlier this year, approved the purchase of that vehicle as part of the current fiscal-year budget.

The commissioners unanimously agreed to turn back a request from the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office for the purchase of a GPS tracking system for 20 of the office’s patrol vehicles at a cost of $9,600.

They also voted 4-2 to tentatively turn back a request from the sheriff’s office for in-car video systems at a cost of $9,634 with Commissioners Robert Cayton and Jerry Langley casting the sole dissenting votes.

The remaining expansion budget includes $149,269 in new spending for the sheriff’s office, $116,353 in new spending for the Department of Social Services, $49,301 for maintenance and repairs to county buildings, $44,647 in new spending for soil and water activities, $12,836 in new spending for the county jail, $4,850 in new spending for the register of deeds office, $4,503 in new spending for the county’s health department and $2,295 in new spending for animal-control activities.

Spruill’s recommended budget delays spending on several expensive items such as installation of a new elevator at the Beaufort County Courthouse, estimated to cost about $130,000, and it trims the amount of money to be spent on new vehicles for the sheriff’s office from $313,960 to $67,920.

Spruill also turned back requests for four new DSS positions and $241,263 in requests from that department for computer-software upgrades.

In their discussions Tuesday, the commissioners identified for additional review $14,956 in recommended spending for 52 Motorola Bluetooth devices to be used by the sheriff’s office’s sworn personnel and six mobile radios for the office. They also identified for later discussion $3,420 in communications upgrades for the county jail.

The commissioners agreed these requests be part of an overall discussion of future communications upgrades for the sheriff’s office.

Tuesday’s discussion of spending requests followed a discussion Monday of anticipated revenues for the coming fiscal year.

Next week’s discussion will continue to focus on county departments’ spending requests.

Despite Spruill’s proposed budget of $50,945,552 being $1,684,759 less than the current budget, it recommends increasing the property-tax rate by five cents per $100 valuation.

County residents would have a chance to turn back 1.5 cents of that proposed increase if they approve a sales-tax increase in a May 2012 referendum also proposed in Spruill’s budget.