The city of Austin got a step closer to finding a new police chief on Monday, as the three finalists for the position were announced and certified.

The Police Civil Service Commission certified the list, which includes current Austin Police Department Det. Brian Krueger, a 26-year veteran of the force who, along with Lt. John Mueller, has filled the chief’s void on an interim basis since earlier this year.

Joining Krueger are two outside candidates — Jeff McCormick, who is currently chief of police in Cannon Falls, Minn., and Roger Pohlman, a lieutenant in Grand Forks, N.D.

Whoever is selected as chief would be replacing Paul Philipp, who retired in January after an internal complaint was filed against him. Details of the complaint have not been made public, though Philipp has said that it involved alleged “misconduct.”

The former chief said in a written statement released in January that the allegations were “largely untrue and unfounded,” and the city concluded the investigation without taking disciplinary action in February.

With the three-member civil service commission done with the certification, it will be up to a City Council committee to interview the finalists and recommend one person to the whole council for approval. That committee consists of council members Janet Anderson and Jeff Austin, as well as Mayor Tom Stiehm, who was a 30-year member of the APD before retiring in 2006.

Those interviews won’t be happening immediately — the city will first have background checks done on the finalists, which could take several weeks. If everything goes smoothly, city human resources director Trish Wiechmann said she’d like to have a recommended candidate for the whole council to vote on by early- to mid-July.

Belita Schindler, a member of the civil service commission, said all of the seven candidates the commission interviewed on Thursday were highly qualified, and whittling the list down to three was difficult.

“We had an excellent pool of candidates,” she said.

That pool included Lt. Mueller, who acknowledged last week that he had applied for the position. It is unclear if other internal candidates applied as well.