LOS ANGELES — Being Britney Spears' father is now a paying gig _ through most of the summer, at least. A court has ordered the troubled pop star's estate to pay James Spears' $2,500 in weekly compensation and authorized him to lease a car. On Wednesday, his authority to handle his daughter's affairs, which was scheduled to expire March 10, was extended until July 31.

Los Angeles Superior Court Commissioner Reva Goetz ordered the weekly payments in documents released by the court Thursday but signed on Wednesday. James Spears, who recently worked as a caterer, was named conservator of his daughter and co-conservator of her estate after she was hospitalized twice in January.

Goetz also ordered Spears' estate to make a $58,800 payment to Samuel D. Ingham III, the court-appointed attorney who represents Britney Spears in the conservatorship case. She also authorized the pop star's psychiatrist to hire two other doctors and pay them retainers totaling $9,000 from her estate.

An attorney for James Spears, Vivian Thoreen, argued in court documents that the extension of the temporary conservatorship was necessary because Jon Eardley, an attorney who made an unsuccessful attempt to move the probate case to federal court last month, had filed additional papers in U.S. District Court. Those documents were under seal.

In the past year, Spears was caught on camera engaging in increasingly bizarre behavior. She shaved her head, beat a vehicle with an umbrella, wore skirts without underwear and left her own car on a busy thoroughfare after getting a flat tire.

The strange outbursts and hospitalizations contributed to the 26-year-old losing custody of her young sons, Jayden James, 1, and Sean Preston, 2. Ex-husband Kevin Federline has sole custody.

Spears was allowed brief visits with the boys beginning in late February after not seeing them for nearly two months. That happened after Spears and Federline agreed to modify the court order that had stripped Spears of her visitation rights, according to Federline attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan.

Spears' parents came to Los Angeles around the time of her second hospitalization. She has kept a noticeably lower profile since being released from the hospital Feb. 6.