The board is yet to receive approval of its 2012-13 annual plan from Health Minister Tony Ryall, who must agree to the level of what is likely to be a financial shortfall the board is allowed.
Early last year, Mr Butterfield shifted finance to the board from a dedicated committee, saying all board members needed to deal with it.
He said this week he had not changed his view on that, and board members would continue to discuss financial reports at their monthly meetings.
However, annual planning would move back to the audit and risk committee, pending a final decision of the board in December.
The board's challenge, with which it was "struggling", was to formulate an annual plan acceptable to the minister.
Speaking after this week's board meeting, at which he signalled a change, he said the board's financial situation was worse than when he drove the change in governance as new board chairman at the beginning of 2011.
"The position is a significant deficit, which we've got to overcome."
The board was facing big increases in insurance, wages and electricity.
He declined to outline where it planned cost savings, saying that was "starting to get into an area that I don't want to discuss".
Altering the governance arrangement could mean changing the committee's terms of reference, and it might need to meet more frequently.
In the meantime, all board members were asked to attend next month's audit and risk committee meeting.
The annual planning work at full board meetings takes place behind closed doors. The public is also excluded from the audit and risk committee.
Board members met in Dunedin this week for just 30 minutes before voting to exclude the public, and more than half the time was spent mulling its 2013 meetings schedule.
The board recently stopped including in its minutes the amount of time spent in public-excluded meetings.
