The Sunset Empire Transportation District has extended the contract of Paul Lewicki, the interim executive director, as the agency launches the recruitment of a full-time leader.

The transit district board voted on June 27 to extend Lewicki’s contract through October. The length of Lewicki’s stay will ultimately depend on when a new executive director is hired, Debbie Boothe-Schmidt, the board chairwoman, said.

Lewicki took over the transit district in May after a lack of money caused the transit district to temporarily shut down services and furlough employees. Lewicki, the former chief operations officer of the agency, came out of retirement to replace Jeff Hazen, who resigned after the financial collapse came to light. The board later denied Hazen a severance package, citing the fact that he would have been terminated for financial malfeasance.

Lewicki’s was set to expire at the end of June. He will receive a slight pay bump under the contract extension.

“I think Paul’s doing a really good job,” Boothe-Schmidt said during the meeting. “He was put into kind of a mess. Thank you so much.”

The board also approved the job description and benefit package for executive director recruitment through the Special Districts Association of Oregon.

The search will be nationwide and will run through July, with the board set to review applications in August. The timeline states that a new executive director would start in December, but board members expressed hope that the process would be expedited.

“I would really love to see someone who’s got transportation experience, grant experience, that has a good background in managing people and staff and that’s looking to stay for a while,” Boothe-Schmidt told The Astorian.

After several meetings with the budget committee, the board on June 27 also adopted a budget for the new fiscal year.

The agency received an initial $505,000 loan from the state to resume partial bus service. Another loan up to $505,000 was made available to the transit district this month to help sustain existing operation levels.

Lewicki said on June 27 he would like to withdraw $425,000 from the second loan, but the Oregon Department of Transportation is leery about the transit district creating more debt, and is instead recommending a smaller withdrawal. The agency cannot draw from the loan after July.

“At this point, I think our dashboard shows that we’re doing well. We have funds in the bank to get us through most of July at this point,” Lewicki said. “We expect (Statewide Transportation Improvement Fund) funding at some point in July to pick up, covering our expenses then.”

Lewicki also said that he recently received a report from a compliance review done by the state on the transit district in May. He plans to bring the results before the board at the next meeting.

“There are some areas in there that are a bit critical of some of our processes,” Lewicki said of the report, which was scheduled to take place prior to the unexpected shutdown in April.

The state has planned to conduct financial and management audits of the transit district. A bulk of the first phase of the audit could take place in late June and July, but the remainder will depend on what auditors find, Shelley Snow, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation, said in an email in June.

“If more than one phase is needed, subsequent audit work could stretch beyond July,” Snow said. “Of course we’re hoping to gather answers sooner (rather than) later so we can move forward with our mutual goal of getting public transportation back to normal on the North Coast.”

Bus service along U.S. Highway 101 between Astoria and Cannon Beach has been made available on weekdays and weekends. Partial paratransit and Dial-A-Ride services have also been restored.

While the Lower Columbia Connector, a popular bus route that took people from Astoria to Portland on U.S. Highway 30, has not been brought back, board members reminded riders of POINT, a bus service through the state Department of Transportation that goes between Astoria and Portland along U.S. Highway 26.