By ROY WOOD

The smokey haze that shrouded Osoyoos for much of August resulted in an estimated 40-per-cent cancellation rate at local hotels and motels for the month.

Gail Scott, managing director of Destination Osoyoos (DO), said in an interview Tuesday the shortfall in hoteliers’ August revenues will translate into a $30,000 hole in her organization’s budget.

She said she is struggling with the fallout and has had to put on hold her hopes to expand her staff from two to three.

Scott was responding to questions about Osoyoos town council’s decision to seek further information before okaying DO’s request for more flexibility in how it spends money it gets from the town.

Under a fee-for-service agreement – signed in February 2014 — the town pays DO $88,000 per year to handle economic development issues on its behalf. According to Scott, that money pays for all DO’s economic development activity, including half of her salary.

In a letter to town chief administrative officer Barry Romanko, Scott asked that DO be freed from having to spend specific amounts in specific areas related to economic development. The letter said only that such a move would allow her more flexibility in “how the funds will support … delivery of desired community and economic develop functions on behalf of the town.”

Speculation around the council table on Tuesday was that DO was seeking to spend more than the stipulated $20,000 per year on economic development programs.

In fact, Scott said, she is seeking the flexibility to hire a third person for the DO staff, which currently includes herself and director of marketing Brianne Hearle.

However, the disastrous August tourism numbers will result in about a $30,000 reduction in DO’s income and, as a result, the hope for a new hire is off the table for this year.

The tourism aspects of DO’s mandate are financed by a two-per-cent local hotel tax.

Scott said the need for the third person in the office is a result of an increased workload involving economic development activities. She said the fee-for-service agreement with the town has resulted roughly a doubling of the work at DO, with no increase in staff.

Scott said she and Hearle have been trying to handle the extra work,  “but we are both perfectionists” and there is just too much to do.

She added that she hopes that for the next budget year she’ll be able to blurr the line between toursim and economic development functions so that some of the hotel tax revenue might be used to fund some projects that currently are defined as strictly economic development.