There soon will be a “help wanted” sign up at the Northshore Senior Center.

Dec. 14 marked the last day for former center director Lee Harper, who took a position as executive director of the Phinney Neighborhood Association in Seattle. Vice president of the nonprofit Senior Services, Joanne Donohue said there is a set procedure in place for picking a new Northshore director.

A sort of umbrella organization, Senior Services oversees operations at seven senior centers, including Northshore. According to Donohue, Senior Services handles a lot of administrative tasks for the centers it services, including working with local officials to fill vacancies such as that left by Harper.

In this instance, Donohue said Senior Services will work directly with the Northshore Board of Directors.

“It’s a good process… It’s a partnership that makes them (the board) the decision makers,” she said.

Donohue added that at this point, the goals for those involved with the search include involving persons with experience in hiring senior management, finding a good pool of candidates and coming up with a worthy list of questions for those candidates.

The Northshore board will soon name a specific selection committee to help find the next director. The committee should consist of board members, center staff and possibly a few representatives of the general public. The group will come up with a final hiring recommendation that then will need to gain the approval of the entire Northshore board.

At present, Donohue said Senior Service officials are in the midst of preparing a job announcement for review by the selection committee. The job announcement then will be posted in print and online for at least a month. Ultimately, Senior Services will rate resumes and set up interviews.

Donohue said that for now the hope is to set an early February deadline for the submission of resumes. Allowing about a month for interviews, a new director could be in place by late February or early March.

Located in Bothell, the Northshore Center served some 7,400 seniors from Bothell, Kenmore, Kirkland, Mill Creek and Woodinville in 2008. During her tenure, Harper talked a lot about funding cuts and financial challenges, especially to the center’s adult day health program. Some of the same difficulties seem likely to await the center’s next director. Northshore just recently issued an e-mail call to action among its membership and interested parties, citing Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposed 2010 supplemental budget.

Gregoire has vowed to rewrite her budget early this month, but the original proposal called for slicing $7 million in funding for the Senior Citizens Service Act, $21 million from help for Adult Day Health and 10 percent in dollars for family caregiver support.

On a related front, Northshore officials have released an 18-month strategic plan outlining the center’s goals between the start of 2010 and July 2011. A section devoted to center finances talks about developing new revenue streams, including charging fees for some as-yet unspecified services.

The plan also mentions leveraging support for an operations levy that could go before voters in the cities served by the center.