Ousted School Chief May Get $120,000 : Buena Park Board Agrees to Payments If Ex-Superintendent Finds No Job in 1 Year

The Buena Park School District Board of Trustees has agreed to pay ousted Supt. Richard F. Cochran up to $120,000, but only if he fails to find another job in the next year.

The unusual terms of the buyout of Cochran’s contract followed disclosure that he collected one year of severance pay from a prior job during his first year on the job in Buena Park, according to a lawyer for the district.

The reason for Cochran’s dismissal was not disclosed. He had been placed on paid leave in May, when his three-year contract came up for a regularly scheduled review.

“If he had received a satisfactory evaluation then, the contract would have been extended,” said Spencer Covert, a Santa Ana attorney who is representing the board. “I’m not at liberty to discuss the underlying reasons for this agreement,” he said.

The board agreed to pay Cochran, 50, superintendent since July, 1987, his regular $70,000 through July, 1990, plus another $50,000 if he fails to find another job by that time. Cochran’s contract with the district guaranteed him his job through July, 1991.

Covert said it was “not atypical” to buy out the last year of a superintendent’s contract.

Board members declined to explain the termination, except to say that it was a confidential “personnel matter” between employer and employee.

“Everyone has been very closemouthed about the situation,” said Joyce Wills, president of the Buena Park Teachers Assn. “None of the employees knew what was going on.”

Board member Lloyd G. Davis said the agreement requires board members to refer questions about the reasons for Cochran’s dismissal to Covert, the board attorney.

This is the second time that a school district has paid Cochran not to work.

The first time was in June, 1987, when the board of the Murray School District in Alameda County bought out the final year of Cochran’s contract for $65,000, only to see him begin work the next week for Buena Park at a salary of $66,000 a year.

Covert said the new agreement is carefully worded to end payments to Cochran if he gets another job or fails to report that he is a finalist for another position in the 1989-90 school year.

Of the overlapping salaries that Cochran drew in 1987-88, Patricia Ferreira, a board member of the Murray School District, said he “used innocence at both ends to his advantage to draw a double salary. . . . The usual situation is that one job is resigned.”

Neither Cochran nor his attorney, Charles Field of Riverside, could be reached for comment Thursday.

Jack Townsend, formerly an assistant superintendent, has served as acting superintendent of the district, which has almost 4,000 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.