The new president of the city’s principals union, Ernest Logan, says a tentative contract deal for principals could be reached in a matter of days.

Over the past three years, Mr. Logan has been the lead negotiator for the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators during a protracted battle with the city to renew the union’s contract, a role he is keeping even after being elevated to the presidency last week. In an interview on Monday, he said he believes a deal is now imminent, although he would not elaborate on what had changed after several months of increasing ire between the city and the union.

“A tentative agreement could happen in 24 to 48 hours. That’s easy,” Mr. Logan said. “We could have a contract in a matter of weeks.”

Mr. Logan said that the two sides could also choose to begin a fact-finding process that would bring in outside arbitrators whose decisions would not be binding, but who could help them reach an agreement.

In a letter to principals last fall, Chancellor Joel Klein said the root of the conflict was the city’s proposal to allow principals to choose their assistant principals, replacing the current system that assigns assistant principals to schools by seniority. Mr. Logan said he could not discuss the details of the negotiations, but he denied Mr. Klein’s earlier assertion that money is less of a factor in the disagreement between the two sides than the work rules.

“I have not been told there’s a whole big pot of money that’s going to be bringing me a raise,” he said, referring to principals’ salaries. (Mr. Logan said he makes about $170,000 a year.) The mayor has been “going all over the country talking about how great the school leaders are,” he said. “My members are saying, ‘Show me the money.'”

Mr. Logan is taking over the union’s helm from Jill Levy — who announced her resignation last year to become president of the national union — just as the mayor has announced a major overhaul of the school system that features a new accountability system for principals.

Mr. Logan’s public reaction to the reorganization has been limited to expressing tentative concerns about the increased role of private groups and fears that principals may not have enough support under the new reorganization. Mr. Logan said the new accountability measures don’t appear to conflict with the contract, although the Quality Review system is among the issues being discussed in contract negotiations, a union spokeswoman, Antoinette Isable, said.

“The attitude I’ve taken is that before I start criticizing something or acknowledging something as good, I’d like to have some answers,” he said. “So far I’ve not gotten the answers that I need.”

In contrast, his counterpart at the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, who last fall negotiated a favorable contract for her union, has fiercely attacked the chancellor’s plan, shattering a brief period of peace between the city and the union leadership following the deal. The teachers’ contract was seen as a slap in the face to principals because senior teachers would earn more money than the assistant principals who supervise them.

“We’re working hard with the CSA to reach an agreement and give our principals the raise they deserve,” a Department of Education spokesman, David Cantor, said. He said the department could not discuss a timetable for the negotiations.