LITTLE ROCK — A job offer for a new executive director at Central Arkansas Transit Authority would come by mid-December under a preliminary timeline that members of a search committee agreed to Monday.
A job description and advertising for the position would be ready by the middle of August, under the preliminary guideline.
Betty Wineland, CATA’s executive director for the past five years, announced in June that she would retire effective July 1, 2013.
CATA board members Jim Gilbert, Lawrence Finn and Art Kinnaman went over the timeline and guidelines prepared by Gilbert, who is the committee chairman. Directors Bruce Moore and Jimmy Moses, also on the search committee, were absent from its initial meeting.
CATA operates transit service for Pulaski County, Little Rock, North Little Rock, Sherwood and Maumelle. CATA also manages River Rail streetcars that run in downtown Little Rock and North Little Rock.
If the job search timeline can be followed, board approval of a candidate selection and the beginning of contract negotiations would come between Dec. 15-30.
“Hopefully we will have a successful candidate in place by March 1 to April 1 next year,” Gilbert said.
Preliminary indication from board members has been to have some overlap with the new director’s start and Wineland’s last months in the position.
Gilbert said he has contacted “folks in the transit industry” to provide direction on a standard transit-industry job description for a “general manager type” position, salary ranges and the best resources to place a job advertisement.
“They’ve promised to send me information that will help us,” Gilbert said. “I’ll start gathering information for the job description and job announcement for y’all’s approval.”
The application period will be “about 30 days,” the committee agreed. But “word of mouth” will also help advertise the position through the transit industry nationally, Gilbert said.
“Word travels through the ranks whenever a general manager opening is out there,” he said.
With the job market still struggling, Gilbert said, it’s “hard to know,” how many applications CATA will receive, but that “100 or more resumes” at the least could be expected.
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/31/2012