Rivera stuns mayor, won't take post as school chief

Mayor Thomas M. Menino scrambled back to Boston last night from the nation's capital, outraged after a much publicized deal to sign Manuel J. Rivera as school superintendent collapsed without notice.

Menino, who less than two weeks ago cited the hiring of the nationally recognized Rivera as evidence that his administration was making big strides in education, received the news late Tuesday night at a mayors' conference in Washington, D.C. He returned early from the meeting to "assess where we go from here" and to grapple with the logistics of launching another national search.

"I'm very disappointed that Superintendent Rivera is not coming to the city," Menino said. "This was a shock to me as mayor. We were not prepared for this."

The broken deal was an embarrassing setback for the mayor and the city after a painstaking search for a marquee leader who would take up Menino's call for major improvement in the city's public schools. It also dealt a blow to Menino's efforts to showcase a re-energized administration in his fourth term.

The mayor said Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York called him yesterday and told him that Rivera -- now school superintendent in Rochester, N.Y. -- would head Spitzer's new commission on public higher education.

"He said he owed me two draft choices," Menino said. "But there's no draft choices in education."

In September, city officials announced the selection of Rivera as Boston's superintendent after nearly a year of searching. He would have become Boston's first Hispanic superintendent and had planned to start in July.

Rivera, who has been cochairman of Spitzer's advisory transition team on education since shortly after Spitzer's election in November, did not return calls seeking comment. Rivera notified the city in a letter sent via Federal Express to School Committee chairwoman Elizabeth Reilinger.

"I've recently been offered an opportunity to work in a different educational context where there is significantly greater need," he wrote in the letter, a copy of which was read to the Globe by a city official. The official declined to be named because of a lack of permission to speak publicly.

"Please be assured this is not a dollars-and-cents decision," Rivera wrote.

But problems arose in the last two weeks of negotiations on a contract for Rivera, who was supposed to sign an agreement with the city next month.

Reilinger said in an interview with the Globe that two sticking points surfaced about 10 days ago with the contract, which was being negotiated in e-mail and phone calls between Rivera's lawyer and the School Committee's lawyer. They were trying to iron out terms of a buyout in case Rivera was not a good fit for Boston, as well as language about pay for unused vacation and sick time. Many superintendents have buyout clauses that allow them to receive full salary and sometimes benefits for the remainder of their term if they leave before the contract ends.

Reilinger, hoping to speed the negotiations, directed the School Committee's lawyer to invite Rivera's lawyer to Boston to settle the contract, and they were supposed to meet this week. But last Friday, Rivera's lawyer requested a postponement because Rivera had been on personal leave and the lawyer wanted to meet with Rivera before coming to Boston.

"I was assuming they were going to meet this week," said Reilinger. "I had called [Rivera] on the 15th [of January] to check in and make sure he was OK, and he didn't call me back."

The School Committee had offered Rivera a five-year contract that would pay a base salary just shy of $300,000 during his first year, with increases each year, she said. The School Committee also would have contributed more than $50,000 a year toward his pension, giving Rivera a contract that city officials said would have been the most generous in Boston history.

Michael G. Contompasis, who has been running the school system since Thomas W. Payzant left last June, is being paid a base salary of $270,000 for his 13 months as superintendent.

"We were more than 95 percent through the contract," Reilinger said of Rivera's deal. "We had conceded to every request. It was a very generous contract."

Domingo Garcia, chairman of the Rochester School Board and a Rivera confidante, said yesterday that Rivera had indicated frustration two weeks ago with contract negotiations. "He was never able to negotiate a contract with these people, and he was fed up," Garcia said in a telephone interview.

Rivera, via a spokeswoman, had denied to the Globe he was backing out when rumors first surfaced two weeks ago. He was in the process of drafting his goals and plans for improving Boston public schools and last visited Boston in late December to meet with community leaders and others.

"There is no truth to the rumor," he had said through his spokeswoman, but declined to comment about contract negotiations.

Menino, who said he had been unaware of any contract issues with Rivera, said he has "full confidence" in the leadership of Contompasis. Menino said he will begin a new search, rather than rely on candidates in the past search. City Hall insiders said the mayor was unhappy with the last slate of top contenders, other than Rivera.

Reilinger said she hopes a new superintendent will be in place by the time Contompasis retires in July. She would not say whether finalists would be subject to public meetings, as she and the mayor had promised in the last round.

"I'm frustrated, obviously, but at the same time, opportunities come up that are unanticipated," she said of Rivera. "We want someone who wants to be in Boston 150 percent."

Contompasis said he would stay in his position until "a suitable replacement is found."

Getting Rivera to agree to be a candidate was a struggle for the School Committee from the start. The American Association of School Administrators had declared him 2006 National Superintendent of the Year.

He had continually insisted he was not a candidate for Boston throughout the search, although the search committee selected him last summer as the top finalist.

But after he publicly agreed to take the job, he traveled to Boston a number of times to meet with community groups and school officials. He was supposed to come to Boston Saturday to attend a community forum on closing the achievement gap.

Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union, said he was stunned by the news and will work with the mayor and the superintendent to ensure stability in the system. Boston teachers are in the midst of contentious negotiations with the School Committee and had scheduled a strike vote for next month, which had been deemed illegal by the state's Labor Relations Commission. Stutman would not say whether the union will call off the vote.

Beverly Mitchell, cochairwoman of the Boston Citywide Parents Council, helped organize the forum that Rivera was supposed to speak at this weekend.

"My first reaction was shock," said Mitchell. ". . . We're back where we were a year ago. Our biggest concern right now is that it has got to be a public process."

James Vaznis and Brian McGrory of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com. Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com.