Weeks after the Metro Council approved expending $40,000 to hire an executive search firm to help find a new airport director for the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport, the city-parish and consulting firm ADK have yet to finalize their contract.
Though a deal is close, it’s been one month since the Metro Council approved a $40,000 contract for Florida-based ADK Consulting to help facilitate the airport director search. The document is still being circulated for signatures, Parish Attorney Lea Anne Batson says. Among those needing to approve it is Mayor Sharon Weston Broome, meaning the firm can’t get paid until that happens. “It just takes time to get all the necessary parties to sign off on it,” Batson says via email. The mayor, she adds, will be the last person to get the document.
The contract is expected to be finalized early next week, Batson says.
The search for a new airport director for BTR has generally been slow moving as council members disagreed over whether to offer the position to interim airport director Ralph Hennessy or conduct a national search.
Early on, they struggled to find common ground over the formation of an airport director search committee and then whether to hire an outside firm to help facilitate the search. In January, the council initially nixed two measures—one that would have approved spending $34,000 in airport funds to hire ADK Consulting and another to approve the company.
Councilwoman Barbara Freiberg, who’s led the fight for a national search, eventually combined the measures and brought the contract back to the council at the Feb. 28 Metro Council meeting. The combined measured passed with an 8-3 vote. The $40,000 contract includes $34,000 for ADK and an extra $5,000 to cover any additional expenses.
Freiberg says the airport director search committee is scheduled to meet with ADK representatives on April 23. The Florida-based firm, which specializes in conducting aviation executive searches, also will collect data on Baton Rouge and the airport as well as on the qualifications for the job. The firm also is building out a website and designing a brochure to advertise the position. Freiberg says she’s not certain if the ADK will begin advertising the position ahead of the April meeting.
