Acknowledging that he will not be able to block the reappointment of the Schools Chancellor, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday called for Ramon C. Cortines to be granted a contract for only one more year. He said the contract should be tied to the condition that the Chancellor show measurable progress in four areas of management and budgeting.
Mr. Giuliani's decision to support the Chancellor's reappointment represented a reversal of his efforts over the last week to convince Mr. Cortines to step down. Mr. Giuliani said his conditions would be offered to the Board of Education by his two appointees, Ninfa Segarra and Dr. Irene H. Impellizzeri.
The board's president, Carol A. Gresser, supported by four other members of the board, has been expected to offer Mr. Cortines a new two-year contract as early as at a meeting on Wednesday, should the Chancellor indicate that he wants to stay on the job.
Last night, Ms. Gresser said that she had not heard from the administration and she called Mr. Giuliani's proposal, "11th hour." She said Mr. Cortines had brought "stability, innovation and fiscal responsibility" to the city school system and deserved to have his contract extended. Ask for how many years, she said, "Certainly more than one."
Mr. Cortines could not be reached for comment last night.
Mr. Giuliani's change of direction marked a rare retreat on the part of a politician who has developed a governing style of being unflinching in the face of opposition, whether he is battling striking Legal Aid lawyers, the City Council or grass roots opponents of budget cutbacks.
Just six days ago, pressing for Mr. Cortines's departure, Mr. Giuliani had called the Chancellor a man without vision and a protector of the status quo. "If I were asked to vote now and say do I have confidence in his being able to make the changes that I believe people in the city want, I haven't seen that," Mr. Giuliani said at a City Hall news conference.
Aides to the Mayor have said that the administration had hoped such statements would cause Mr. Cortines to withdraw his name from consideration and leave when his current $195,000-a-year contract expires at the end of June. But by yesterday, with parents, educators, elected officials and business leaders rallying around him, and the board prepared to offer him a new contract on Wednesday, Mr. Cortines had failed to withdraw his name. While Mr. Cortines has been silent about his intentions, those close to him said they expected him to stay.
Mr. Giuliani said in an interview yesterday that with the Board of Education moving toward offering a contract extension this week, he recognized that he did not have the support of the seven-member board to oust the Chancellor. "This is an acceptance of the reality that he has the votes to remain," Mr. Giuliani said. "My preference would be for a new chancellor. But the reality is he has the votes to remain."
Mr. Giuliani said he was suggesting a one-year contract with conditions as a way to satisfy some of his own concerns about management and financing of the school system "because there's a very good chance, if not an excellent chance, he'll be there anyway." The Mayor added: "If he is, we want the board to hold him to a clear and public substantive agenda of reform so he can be measured by that progress. In other words we want him to be accountable."
Mr. Giuliani said the conditions that he wanted included in the contract were assurances that Mr. Cortines would "move aggressively" to carry out a school-based budgeting system in which each of the 1,100 schools would be required to draw up their own budgets instead of having budgeting done at Board of Education headquarters; that the Chancellor try to adjust a disparity in which spending on students in special education classes far outstrips spending on other students; that he adopt an accounting system that makes a clear distinction between administrative costs and other school costs, and that further reductions be made in middle management.
"Since our desire to have a new chancellor is not going to be accepted by the board, the least the board can do is to come up with a group of very specific things the Chancellor has to achieve in reforming the system so that in the future he has to be judged from a substantive background rather than a more romantic, emotional background," the Mayor said.
But Ms. Gresser said she thought the Chancellor was already addressing all of the areas that Mr. Giuliani cited as his concerns. "The changes that need to be made in the system are big changes and they are not going to be done in a year or two," she said. "It's unrealistic to say, 'We're going to give you one year to completely turn the system around.' " But she added that Ms. Segarra and Dr. Impellizzeri were free to make their proposal at the board meeting Wednesday.
The Mayor said the decision to seek a one-year contract with Mr. Cortines was hammered out Saturday at two meetings with his senior staff, one at City Hall and one at Gracie Mansion. Among those attending were Ms. Segarra and Dr. Impellizzeri; Deputy Mayor Peter J. Powers; Richard J. Schwartz, the senior adviser to the Mayor; Paul A. Crotty, the Corporation Counsel, and Cristyne F. Lategano, the Mayor's press secretary. Once the decision was made, Ms. Lategano quickly called a reporter to publicize it.
Mr. Cortines came to New York 16 months ago after a conservative, four-member majority -- two of them prominent supporters of Mr. Giuliani's candidacy for Mayor -- of the Board of Education ousted Joseph A. Fernandez over his position on social issues like condom distribution and teaching about homosexuality. Mr. Cortines was hired to refocus on educational standards.
Since then Mr. Cortines spent much of his time on what Mr. Giuliani had said during his campaign for mayor were his educational priorities: refocusing the schools on the basics of teaching and learning and raising academic standards. And Mr. Giuliani said yesterday that he recognized that he and the Chancellor shared largely the same views in educational policy.
But with the city contributing $3.1 billion toward the $8.4 billion school system budget, Mr. Cortines and Mr. Giuliani, like many mayors and chancellors before them, quickly began feuding over the financing that the schools need from the city, as well as on other issues of management. And in April, Mr. Cortines briefly submitted his resignation, accusing Mr. Giuliani of political blackmail when the Mayor named Herman Badillo as a fiscal monitor to investigate the Board of Education's finances.
