By ROY WOOD

Okanagan-Similkameen school trustees face some serious decisions, including possibly closing schools, although board chair Marieze Tarr says they may be able to put them off for one more year.

School district 53 faces declining enrollment in most of its schools and a structural operating deficit of about half a million dollars a year.

Senior district staff will present the board with an “updated facilities plan” at a January 13 special meeting.

The plan will include not only an assessment of the physical facilities in the district but also enrollment trends for every school. The district covers Osoyoos, Oliver, Okanagan Falls, Cawston, Hedley and Keremeos.

“We are in a structural deficit (situation),” said Tarr said in a recent interview. “So we are looking at – in the next couple of months – how we are going to be able to save money in our budget.”

For the last several years, the board has been dipping into an accumulated operating surplus to cover the annual shortfall. However, the surplus has shrunk and holds only enough reserves to cover this fiscal year and next.

The facilities plan will include staff recommendations to deal with the funding deficit and declining enrolments over the next five years.

“The board will discuss them, said Tarr, “and decide if it is something we should proceed with or is it something we can put off for another year.”

The last time the board seriously examined district-wide cost reductions was in 2010, when an outside agency contracted by the board made six suggestions. Among them were closing Osoyoos Secondary School, Oliver Elementary, Tuc-el-Nuit Elementary or  Cawston Elementary.

At that time, “The board felt it was a little premature to do anything because we weren’t in a deficit,” said Tarr.

This time around, “(Staff) will make proposals to the board and then the board will decide (if we are) going to move forward with any of these proposals.

“And then the process after that will be the board will go to all the communities that will be impacted by any change in school structures. And we will get input from the communities and only after that will the board make any decisions based on all the facts,” she said.

Tarr said there is “some good news” around student numbers. “Enrollment trends are not as bad as were predicted. They are more stable than was predicted. Declines in none of our schools have been as bad as were predicted in 2010.”

Earlier this week, Education Minister Mike Bernier met with the board during a visit to the school district.

Tarr said the visit was a positive one described Bernier as “very collegial and collaborative.”

“We told him we appreciate the steps he has taken to rebuild the relationship between the ministry and trustees because after the last minister and the teachers’ strike and things like that, the relationship was pretty broken,” she said.

Bernier took over as minister in July from Peter Fassbender.