COVINGTON, Ga. — Three internal candidates are among the six semifinalists to be the next city manager of Covington.

The City Council met behind closed doors Wednesday at the Covington Municipal Airport to meet the top applicants.

“We had six interviews and it was a long day,” Mayor Ronnie Johnston said Friday.

“We’ve got some great candidates and hopefully here pretty soon we’ll be advertising the top three, or top two maybe.”

City officials are not identifying the semifinalists. State law allows secrecy until the finalist stage, to allow for discretion for those who might be in other positions and not want to jeopardize their careers.

City Manager Leigh Anne Knight is retiring at the end of the year after six years on the job and a decade with the city.

Texas-based Strategic Government Resources has assisted the city in its search.

Johnston said it’s rewarding to see a strong slate of internal candidates reach this stage in the process.

“We’ve got some good people that have been there a long time,” he said. “I think Leigh Anne’s done a really good job over the past eight years of bringing some talent into the city.”

He expects one or two more closed meetings of the council to narrow the field. Johnston said he’s excited to see where it goes.

“I’m not sure there’s a bad decision we can make,” he said. “We’ve got 69 applicants, and we did a pretty lengthy, nationwide search.

“It was pretty interesting. We’ve got some really good qualified candidates.”

The city manager is the chief administrative officer of Covington’s government, with oversight of 335 employees and a budget of about $130 million.

An advertisement for the position says it will have a yearly salary range of $115,128 to $160,041.60, plus benefits.