Talks Begin on Buyout of Zacarias’ Contract

The crisis that has engulfed the Los Angeles school system for weeks crept toward a finale Friday when lawyers representing Supt. Ruben Zacarias and the school board opened negotiations to buy out the 70-year-old educator’s contract.

After voting 4 to 3 Thursday night to oust the superintendent, board members were hardening their positions on his severance package, indicating that they were not planning to bargain, as one put it, “sky high,” or for long.

Board member Caprice Young said she expects the negotiations to last a few days, wrapping up next week.

Although Zacarias could take his case to court, extending the monetary part of the negotiations for years, UCLA law professor Michael Asimow said the board could ask him to leave at any time.

“The timing of when they want him to leave is up to them unless he wants to leave earlier,” Asimow said. “The agreement on the money can occur long after he is out of a job.”

Although who would replace Zacarias has yet to be resolved, Ramon C. Cortines is believed to be the leading candidate for the interim position.

A former superintendent in New York, Pasadena and San Francisco with a history of helping turn around troubled districts, he has said he would not accept the job as long as Zacarias is in office.

But during Thursday night’s closed session, the board seemed to be paving the way for Cortines’ appointment, with President Genethia Hayes handing each of her colleagues a copy of his resume.

“I was stunned they would move so quickly to bring him on,” said board member and Zacarias supporter Julie Korenstein, “someone they know nothing about beyond what they’ve heard secondhand or read in a couple news articles.”

“Now, we can expect lawsuits are going to start rolling in, which means we’ll be spending millions to buy people off,” she added. “It’s Alice in Wonderland around here right now.”

Richard Sheehan, the board’s attorney, and Joseph Coyne Jr., the superintendent’s attorney, were to have started conversations Friday that would prepare the legal grounds for a first offer to be made by one side or the other as early as Monday. Neither attorney was available for comment Friday.

“There are no rules about who takes the first shot, although it sounds like the board may make the first offer in this case,” said attorney Peter Ostroff, who helped former Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams arrange the severance package that led to his early departure in 1997.

Like Williams, who battled the City Council, Zacarias has campaigned to keep his job in a highly charged political atmosphere in which ultimate judgments are made by elected officials.

And like Williams, Zacarias is a man fiercely protective of his sense of pride, dignity--and public image.

“If Zacarias is perceived to be a sympathetic character in the morality play that’s unfolding,” Ostroff said, “then it will be easier for politicians controlling his fate to justify paying more.”

“On the other hand, if it is perceived that he is not particularly sympathetic, they aren’t going to want to offer all that much,” he said. “A great deal depends on Ruben’s resolve and what he wants to do with the rest of his life--does he fight for years to come, or go quietly into the sunset?”

Zacarias is expected to ask at least for $277,000 to cover the 18 months of salary compensation allowed under state law, plus $150,000 for accrued vacation, and undetermined health and other benefits.

Twelve months of the time left on his contract, however, was added by the previous board in one of its last acts and may become a bargaining chip in the impending talks.

A board member who spoke on condition of anonymity said: “We intend to offer Ruben what we think he deserves. . . . That means that 12 months given him by the previous board is negotiable.”

Legal and education experts differed in their views on the potential course of the negotiations, partly because none reached by The Times knew of a precedent in which a superintendent and board had battled publicly. Although superintendent buyouts occur fairly often in California, they are usually settled quietly.

“A lot of times, these negotiations are held attorney-to-attorney, and it’s in closed session,” said James Morante, a spokesman for the California School Boards Assn.

The State Officers and Employees Code limits payouts to 18 months of salary and excludes “any other noncash items except health benefits,” which can be continued but not paid out in cash.

However, one attorney who specializes in educational governance said Zacarias could make a claim for damages based on the theory that the board had usurped his job by naming Howard Miller as chief operating officer with authority over all district staff.

“If they don’t let him perform his duties, they run the risk of being sued for damaging his professional relationship and his reputation,” said the attorney, who asked not to be identified.

Also setting this case apart is the significant and dedicated Latino constituency--a force that the board will have to figure into its negotiation strategies.

It was relatively easy, for example, to oust former Supt. Leonard Britton in 1990--an unknown educator from outside the city with no constituency and an austere personality.

“Back then, the board simply decided he was a goner, totaled his account and elevated Bill Anton to the superintendency,” said Mark Slavkin, a board member at the time.

“We added up his remaining months of salary, plus benefits and vacation,” he said. “That was it. No theatrics.”

Zacarias, who has deep roots in the Latino community and who has hired a prominent corporate litigation attorney to argue his case, will not go so lightly.

The superintendent’s attorney, Coyne, has said he plans to challenge in court the board’s recent decision to appoint Miller head of district operations. Zacarias had refused to accept the Oct. 12 appointment, which he said severely undercut his own authority.

That stalemate eventually led to the board’s initiation of buyout talks. In effect, what began as frustration with environmental problems at school construction sites and with the slow pace of reforms led to Zacarias’ ouster.

Now Coyne is arguing that the board had no right to trigger buyout talks because it failed to formally evaluate the superintendent. Hostile board members, however, point out that Zacarias provided legal cause for ouster by failing to abide by its decision to place Miller in charge of the district’s day-to-day operations.

In other district developments Friday, sources said the departures of district general counsel Richard K. Mason and chief administrative officer David Koch were imminent.

Both had agreed to buyout packages, but an announcement was delayed because the agreements had not been signed by board president Hayes, sources said.

Mason and Koch were the highest-level employees among nine named by auditor Don Mullinax as bearing responsibility for the environmentally plagued Belmont Learning Complex. The board is expected next month to decide whether to complete or abandon the $200-million downtown high school project.

In one of Koch’s last official acts, a report released this week elevated the cost of work already performed on the project from a previous estimate of $125 million to $170 million.