GREATER ROMANS will shortly have a new director of the Sara Hightower Regional Library and a new superintendent of the Floyd County Schools as the finalists for those positions, left vacant by retirements, have been narrowed down and made public.

The three library finalists, and two superintendent finalists (both containing one familiar name already locally employed by the organizations) seem qualified, highly experienced and their approaches/beliefs open to detailed probing before a selection is made, which must occur at least 14 days after the finalists are revealed to the public.

That’s the way those top-level, taxpayer-salaried positions should be filled and we point this out as a model to follow to the state, which does not always appear to do it this way.

For example, Gov. Nathan Deal recently “suggested” a candidate for the open top job running the Georgia Lottery to the governing board of seven … who are appointed by the governor. The result: Nobody else applied (and one board member quit in protest feeling the process rigged.)

Floyd’s future library director knows what a book is; the future superintendent has been in a classroom. The next certain lottery boss is Deal’s current budget director and it is unknown whether she has ever, in her life, spent a dollar on even a $1 scratch-off.

The comparison is interesting, and may help explain to citizens why local government so often appears both better and more smoothly run than state government. There is a difference between playing the odds and outright gambling.