By Travis Gettys
Enquirer contributor

NEWPORT - A six-month search for a new superintendent ended how it began - by offering a contract to former Cincinnati schools chief Michael Brandt.

The Newport School Board voted unanimously Thursday to begin contract negotiations with Brandt. He was hired last fall as a consultant to help find candidates to replace Dan Sullivan, who is retiring after 47 years as an educator.

Details of the four-year contract, which would pay Brandt $140,000 a year, should be final before the May 26 school board meeting, said School Board Chairman Tete Turner.

After narrowing the field of candidates to two, officials could not reach a consensus, said school board member Ken Fields.

School board members turned their attention to Brandt, who retired in 1998 from Cincinnati Public Schools because of since-resolved health problems.

"In our few meetings, our conversations, we really felt a click, a kinship," Turner said.

Brandt, superintendent-in-residence at Xavier University, was told Friday that the search for a new superintendent was over.

"It turns out I was the candidate they wanted to talk to," Brandt said. "Things happened rather quickly."

During his 1991-1998 tenure as superintendent of Cincinnati Public Schools, Brandt shepherded the district through changes in public accountability for school performance, and he thinks that experience won over school board officials.

"The current financial strain in Kentucky will be nothing new to me," said Brandt, a Delhi Township resident.

Despite the budget shortfall, Brandt said he's looking forward to working under Kentucky's school funding formula, which does not require districts to repeatedly ask voters for operating costs.

"It'll be nice to just focus on the district and the students, instead of constantly trying to sell the district and results to get people to vote for the tax levy," he said.