Steve Powers, who appears to be the favored candidate as the Ann Arbor City Council moves toward potentially hiring a new city administrator Monday night, is now a finalist for the Polk County administrator position in Des Moines, Iowa.

According to a report on DesMoinesRegister.com, Powers is one of four finalists for the position in Iowa. He's one of two finalists in Ann Arbor.

Polk County officials are expected to interview Powers and other candidates July 21-22, according to the report, which says the salary range for the post is $140,000 to $200,000.

The Ann Arbor city administrator job is expected to pay somewhere in the range of $145,000 to $150,000. Powers makes $88,250 at his current position as the county administrator in Marquette, Mich., where he manages a $47 million budget in a county of 67,077 residents.

Ann Arbor has nearly 114,000 residents and a city budget of more than $330 million, though general fund expenditures total only $79.1 million.

Powers could not be reached for comment today.

The other candidate being considered in Ann Arbor is Ellen Oppenheim, who resigned Feb. 7 from her job in Nevada making $234,000 a year as CEO of the Reno-Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority, a position she held since 2006.

Powers has held his current job for the last 15 years and has acknowledged he's exploring multiple opportunities now that his children have graduated from college and high school.

He has shown strong interest in coming to Ann Arbor, where he said he knows other people from Marquette who have relocated here.

"I've had some comments on how or why would someone from the U.P. add value or help bring change to Ann Arbor," he said this week during a public reception inside the city's Justice Center. "One reason is that in some ways, in many ways, Marquette is like Ann Arbor."

Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529. You also can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's e-mail newsletters.