Vicksburg Housing Authority commissioners could be ready to hire a new executive director this month, one of the commissioners said.

Commissioner Jay Kilroy said Thursday that the board has narrowed the list of applicants for director to “three or four people.”

“We have finished the interviews,” he said. “I hope we can make an offer soon. I hope it’s this month.”

The commissioners do not meet in December, but Kilroy said a special meeting could be called if a new director is selected.

The housing authority has been without an executive director since early September, when Dannie Walker left to take a similar position with the Ozark, Ala., Housing Authority. Kilroy said the board has been managing the VHA since Walker left.

Walker had been VHA director for two years. He was paid about $88,000 a year and lived in a house in the Rolling Acres housing complex, Kilroy said. He was hired in July 2009, replacing Jim Stirgus Sr., who was paid $72,000 a year as director.

Stirgus was fired by the board in the midst of a turbulent 6-month period that followed the arrest of housing authority maintenance superintendent Charles Jones Jr. for possession of cocaine in December 2008.

Kilroy did not know if the new director will receive the same salary as Walker.

“The people we’re looking at have various levels of experience,” he said. “We’ll have to look at that to decide on a salary.”