LEWISTON — Since the YWCA of Central Maine’s near closure last summer, the nonprofit agency has continued to lose money.

The ongoing losses have led the Board of Directors to initiate a top-to-bottom analysis of the 130-year-old institution. Jobs have changed. Hours among the seven full-time staffers have been cut. A new, interim management team has been hired to change the course and in April, a search will begin to find a new executive director.

“I’m just determined to help them turn around,” said Steve Austin, an Auburn accountant whose firm, Austin Associates, began working at the YWCA on March 1.

“We need to stop the bleeding,” he said. “My strategy is to be honest and to tell them they’re bleeding.”

On Thursday, Austin set up an impromptu office in a YWCA conference room, surrounded by an open briefcase and stacks of paper.

Amid the bills and memos, he said he felt confident that the longtime agency could thrive.

“It has all the pieces,” he said. The YWCA has a dedicated staff and Board of Directors, strong programs, a first-rate pool and it’s loved by the community, he said. “It just isn’t being led.”

For the past year, former Aquatics Director Pam Gallant has served as executive director, a role she took on because the last director left and the YWCA board needed someone to fill in. In the restructuring, Gallant has been named programs director.

Until a new executive is found, Austin and one of his associates, Hillary Eaton, plan to manage the agency as a team. Austin plans to work on spending less money while Eaton works on increasing the money coming in.

“We’re trying to have a presence at the YWCA,” Eaton said. One or both of them plan to be there every day, meeting with people or analyzing the books or working on new marketing ideas. The pair are contracted to be there a total of 20 to 30 hours per week.

“It’s turning into much more than that,” Eaton said.

This is not the first crisis for the YWCA.

In the past decade, it has had a long list of executive directors. Savings were spent and expenses for such commodities as heating oil climbed.

The pressure became too much last August, when the YWCA Board of Directors announced the agency’s closure.

A few days later, after several large donations were made, the directors reversed their decision.

To date, the fundraising campaign has raised more than $500,000. And more is being sought. Last week, an application was filed for Community Development Block Grant money. And an energy audit is under way, aimed at finding ways to make the East Avenue facility more efficient.

The changes will make the YWCA more sustainable, said Lee Young, president of the YWCA.

Young, a former Auburn mayor, engineered the plan to hire Austin and his firm. She has been involved in the personnel changes aimed at taking advantage of people’s strengths.

“We need to use our staff the best way that we can,” she said Thursday.

Austin insists that the YWCA can thrive.

“Maybe I can be the quarterback to get this thing going,” he said.

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