On Tuesday, Franklin City School Supt. Bill Pruett handed each member of the School Board a personally addressed envelope. In it contained his resignation.

The news came suddenly and unexpectedly to some board members.

What comes next, however, will determine the destiny of the city’s schools and the legacy of the current board.

Selecting a superintendent is no easy task. That task is made even more difficult in Franklin, where the salary is lower than neighboring school systems pay, according to some board members.

Still, Franklin is a small system, by comparison: Three schools with a high school enrollment of sightly more than 400.

A soft economy that has wiggled its way into crevasses of both the private and public sectors make this a difficult time to find the right person for the top job at the salary being offered. Lower-level administrators in bigger systems are probably paid more than Franklin can offer for its top spot, which paid Pruett about $120,000 per year when including benefits.

So this hire becomes an exercise in fiscal dexterity. There are creative ways to compensate a new superintendent, and to make the job attractive beyond its paycheck.

The best and the brightest, which is the targeted applicant, deserves as much.