CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – Horry County is starting its search for a new, permanent county administrator.

The county and former administrator Chris Eldridge parted ways in April after nearly five months of controversy. Eldridge’s job status was first questioned back in December when SLED investigated a claim of an extortion attempt against one of Gardner’s associates. No charges were filed and several council members criticized Eldridge for mishandling the claim.

Horry County Council chair Johnny Gardner says he doesn’t want to spend that much time finding Eldridge’s replacement.

“Ninety days is the goal,” said Gardner.

The county’s human resources department explained the process of hiring a new administrator to council Tuesday night. The position will be advertised nationally on Wednesday. The application window will be open for 30 days before council selects about five to seven candidates to interview.

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The top three finalists for the job will return for a second round of interviews.

“You’ll have about 100 or so applicants,” Gardner said. “HR will go through those. Some of those clearly will not be qualified. It’s just the numbers. They’ll forward us the ones that are qualified, we will go through them and we’ll make our decisions.”

The county also says candidates will be interviewed in private, which is the same as the last search for a county administrator.

“Once we get the final candidate rankings that you want to use or the final number of candidates you want to use, we’ll schedule the interviews,” said county human resources director Patrick Ownens to council.

Gardner says his ideal choice for administrator would have experience working in a larger county government like Horry County.

“Somebody that knows a little bit about Horry County because we have some things that are zigging and zagging between different jurisdictions and how to manage that,” he said.

Steve Gosnell currently serves as interim county administrator after council approved Eldridge’s severance package, which is worth more than $300,000.