Carpenter, who announced earlier that he plans to step down as manager later this year, told The Courier-Times Friday that the Person Board of County Commissioners had whittled the list of manager hopefuls down to four.

Initially, there were 27 applicants for the position that Carpenter has held since 1999. Carpenter, 54, is the county’s sixth full-time manager.

The four finalists for the position are all from North Carolina, Carpenter said Friday. He added that one of the four finalists was from Person County.

The plan, according to Carpenter, is to have each of the four manager candidates in Person County over a two-day period May 27-28, which will include meet-and-greet sessions with various members of the community and assessment centers.

“It could very well be that the commissioners will have an idea of who they want after that,” Carpenter said. “If that’s the case, they may very well set up an interview with the person they want to talk to and could offer the job fairly quickly.”

Carpenter said earlier that he would prefer for commissioners to have his successor in place in time to participate in portions of the budget planning for the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Carpenter has also said he would stay on in a support role during the transition period for the new manager, if commissioners so desire.