A committee of five hoteliers set up to look at the best solution for Bermuda College's Stonington Hotel are to decide on their final recommendation today - and it could lead to some job cuts.

The committee has five proposals outlining the best way they think the hotel should be run, including whether it should be independently managed. The proposals must also ensure the hotel continues to provide hospitality students with training.

President of the college Dr. Michael Orenduff said at the meeting today they are likely to choose a preferred option and then recommend it to the College board.

If it is agreed, the board will in turn pass the recommendation on to Education Minister, Paula Cox.

It will then be for her to discuss the options with Cabinet and map out the way ahead.

However, Dr. Orenduff said one of the proposals suggested that the entire staff be made redundant and then rehired under a new contract.

He said one of the independent hoteliers on the committee believed the hotel was currently overstaffed and has suggested jobs cuts be made to make the hotel more efficient.

However, Dr. Orenduff said such a move was "drastic" and the aim of the college was to protect staff, so all of the proposals would have to be considered carefully.

The meeting today follows months of discussion about the future of the Stonington Hotel, which is said to have been running at a loss for years and has been accused of draining the college of cash.

When chairman of the college Jan Spiering took over in January of last year, he said the board wished to deal with the issue of the hotel once and for all, with the aim of making it more efficient and profitable, and maybe leaving the management of it for an outside entity.

The president said: "We have five proposals that made it to the second round. They each vary quite a lot.

"I cannot go into detail about what those proposals are... I can say that we are not going to sell it (the hotel).

"It may be that we rent the hotel out to a separate entity and they run and operate it as a business. "However, one of the conditions of any proposal will be that the hotel is still used for our hospitality students."

He said the committee and the college wanted to offer their recommendation to Ms Cox so she could consider it in her decision-making.

The president added: "I don't know if any of the proposals will be accepted in the long-run, but they will be passed on.

"One of the proposals suggests that we should in fact make the entire staff redundant and then re-hire them under a new contract. I think they would have to reapply.

"One of the people has said we have too many employees, so we would need to have some kind of a process to shrink the workforce.

"That's obviously a very drastic move and we would like to protect the employees, so we have to think very long and hard about accepting a proposal of that nature."

Voluntary redundancy would be one thing to consider, said Dr. Orenduff.

He said at the height of the season the hotel had about 100 staff, but during low season there are only about 30.

"Our labour costs are about 47 percent of revenue and the Island average is probably about 34 percent, so we are significantly higher in our costs," added the president.

"We are going to narrow down our proposals to one. Obviously, at some point, that proposal will become public, but I don't know when that will be.

"My hope is to have everything in place by no later than April, when the new season begins. I know that's ambitious, but it's what I'm hoping for."

Ms Cox was not available for comment last night.