The Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport is a step closer to hiring a new permanent manager.
The airport’s authority board Wednesday approved hiring ADK Consulting on a one-year, $36,900 contract to conduct the search.
The Atlantic Beach, Fla., firm is the same one that assisted the Spokane International Airport in finding its CEO, Larry Krauter. A citizen committee to help ADK will be announced at the airport board’s next meeting.
The agreement carries a guarantee that if the new manager leaves for any reason other than medical issues or is fired for cause in the first four months, the firm will locate another candidate at no charge.
If a departure occurred for those reasons later in the first year, the fee for redoing the search would increase on a sliding scale, topping at about $18,500, or half of the firm’s full fee.
“That tells me they are going to stand behind who they are going to help select,” said board member Chris Hayes.
Using a consultant should help the airport identify someone who will be in the position long term, Hayes said, and then listed people who have held the position in the past five years.
Robin Turner retired in 2014 after overseeing the airport for 30 years. He was replaced by Bruce MacLachlan, an airport administrator from Indiana who was fired for undisclosed reasons after 15 months.
He was followed by Hayes, who was serving on the airport board and later left to take a new job. Then the airport hired Stephanie Morgan, a former airport manager from Florida in 2017.
She was fired for unspecified reasons in November. Chris Clemens, a board member, held the job on a voluntary basis from December through the middle of March.
Clarence W. “Bill” McKown Jr. became the airport’s interim manager the same month Clemens stepped away from the position. He is a former U.S. Navy pilot and commanding officer who has had a second career in airport administration and has promised to stay at the airport until the permanent manager is hired.
In another matter, the board approved an audit for the fiscal year that ended in Sept. 30, 2018. It included two findings involving billing and payroll records.
Auditors learned that Horizon Air, a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines, hadn’t been billed for about $18,000 in landing fees, said Mitch Marx, a partner at Presnell Gage, the firm that conducted the audit.
The oversight was corrected after it was found and the airline paid within about two weeks of being billed in March 2019.
Horizon had Lewiston flights to Boise and Seattle before it withdrew from north central Idaho about one year ago.
Auditors also discovered “the documentation related to payroll was not maintained for all periods and there are payroll files that are no longer available for current or recently separated employees.”
The airport board also:
Awarded a $7.1 million contract to Knife River to rebuild the older and shorter of the airport’s two runways. The project is scheduled to start in the spring.
Listened to comments from Board Chairman Jim Bennett, who said the combined $1.15 million the airport is receiving from its owners, the city of Lewiston and Nez Perce County, should set the stage for the facility to rebound.
One of the biggest priorities is attracting more air service. SkyWest, which goes to Salt Lake City, is the only commercial passenger carrier in Lewiston.
Heard an update about paid airport parking from McKown. The parking lot is already being repainted to prepare for the introduction of the $5 per car per day fees this fall. Passengers will pay at kiosks inside the terminal. They will be issued receipts, but won’t need to leave them on their dashboards because airport staff will be able to view the transactions electronically.
Williams may be contacted at [email protected] or (208) 848-2261.
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