LYNWOOD — By a 3-1 vote Tuesday night, school board members Jose Solache, Rachel Chavez and Oscar Espinoza approved the hiring of Leadership Associates, an executive search firm based out of Mission Viejo, to locate a new superintendent for the Lynwood Unified School District.

Leadership Associates has assisted school boards in their selection of superintendents in nearly 200 California school districts and organizations since 1996.

“Selecting your new superintendent, your CEO, is the most important decision you will make,” the firm’s Web site states. “Our firm has the experience and expertise to help you make the right decision for your students, district and community.”

The firm’s statement also says that Leadership Associates is proud of the fact that school boards are highly satisfied with their assistance in finding quality candidates from which to select.

“We work for the board of trustees,” the sites says. “The board is in charge of the process and the selection. The search process is an opportunity for the board to solidify their own teamwork and set the direction for the future. … Boards of trustees select our firm for many reasons, including our record of success, our experience and skill, our network, and our integrity.”

School board clerk Maria Lopez dismissed herself from the closed session meeting prior to the board’s final vote.

School board member Alfonso Morales was the lone dissenter. Sources say he did not approve of the firm because of the cost, but he could not be reached for an official comment.

Leadership Associates ranked among the top two proposals reviewed by the district’s general counsel, Lozano & Smith, for the job.

The law firm received approximately five proposals, which were narrowed down to the top two.

“It was a flip of a coin between the two top firms, because they are both excellent,” acting Superintendent Patrick Leier said.

Board member Chavez said she agreed with Leier and Lozano & Smith in that the top two search firms’ qualifications were excellent.

While both firms’ costs rank high, Leadership Associates’ proposal came in $10,000 lower, Chavez said, which helped her decide.

Solache, who has been blamed by some for manipulating the district’s last search for a superintendent, told some people he was not going to have anything to do with the selection of the firm.

Despite having hired a pricey search firm back in 2004-05, Solache reportedly usurped the firm’s top three finalists by pushing his candidate, Dhyan Lal, to the top of the list.

A year later, Solache, along with Morales, Lopez and then board member Guadalupe Rodriguez renewed Lal’s contract for $250,000 a year, with lifetime benefits. Lal was released from his post last August by a 5-0 vote.

Prior to going into closed session on Tuesday night to discuss their decision on the search firm, Solache said his priority in hiring a search firm was that it involve the community in the decision process as much as possible.

“One thing that I’ve learned with this process, is that personally I [would like to] expose the candidates [for superintendent] to the community, and have open forums so that they can be involved,” Solache said. “But I’ve been told by the search firm, for confidentiality [purposes], we won’t be able to do that.”

Still, Solache promised that whichever search firm was hired Tuesday night will meet with the community, teachers, administrators, parents and whomever wants to meet with the firm “to make sure that their feedback is added to the process.”

Solache said his priority is to make sure the community as a whole is involved in the process this time, “so that they can tell the search firm what they would like to see in a superintendent.”

“Right now, more than anything, [we need] someone who has a strong background in academics, and with the current budget situation, someone with a strong fiscal background,” Solache said. “Those are the top two priorities in the district right now.”

Chavez’s biggest concern in finding candidates for the superintendent post lie in the district’s academic and fiscal condition.

“My first question to the search firm was whether or not they thought our situation would prevent us from getting good candidates,” Chavez said. “But both firms told me no. They both told me that they knew for a fact that there were people out there with the ability to turn things around for our district.”

One thing is for certain, Chavez said. Whomever Leadership Associates bring to the table, they’re going to have their work cut out for them.

Chavez said she would like the firm to look for candidates with strong backgrounds in curriculum and instruction, experience with school finance and fiscal crisis matters, but most of all someone who is honest and has good moral values.

“We need someone who is going to be respectful and decent,” she said. “Someone who will want to work with our community and pay attention to the needs of our students, our parents and our teachers.”

“What we’re also going to be looking for in a superintendent is someone who is not afraid to face the problems that we’re facing,” she said. “At this point, we need someone who knows that they’re going to have their work cut out.”

The district is still paying its former superintendent’s $250,000 contract through September. Leier, who has held the post temporarily since mid-August, said the district can afford to pay a new superintendent as well.

“You have to look at it this way. … For one, I’m not going to be here anymore … so you won’t be counting my salary. The key to the next two to three years is that this district needs to have a superintendent who can continue to move this district forward through the fiscal crisis. So it wouldn’t be an additional expense, it would be a position that is needed by this district.”

Additionally, Leier said, whomever is hired for the permanent superintendent’s job will need to be dedicated.

“This isn’t a part-time job,” he said. “This job is a 24-7 job and whomever is hired will really need to be committed to the position.”

Solache agreed and said that whomever is hired for the new superintendent job will need to be involved in the community and in the schools 100 percent. “Not just on paper,” he said. “We will need this person to know who the leaders of the community are, what the needs of our students are, even who our PTA presidents are.”

Solache said the board hopes to introduce a new superintendent by the start of the 2010-11 school year. Leier said it might be sooner than that.