Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part. Names follow the project's dialogue file and the 2015 to 2023 roster; no minutes exist online to check spellings against. Identifications the dialogue file marks as uncertain are marked here too.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Michael Petrin | Chair, SAU 6 Board (Claremont member) | Presided; said the Abbey Group "have no role in filing"; summarized how food-service duties were spread across the SAU office; proposed a subcommittee without a formal motion; favored waiting on the efficiency study. The dialogue file rates this identification medium: it rests on the roster (Petrin elected SAU 6 chair on March 28, 2019) and elimination. |
| Marjorie Erickson | Vice chair (Unity member) | Offered corrections to the draft minutes; said the SAU lacked policies, including on the chair's authority in an emergency; joined the policy subcommittee; argued for an efficiency study before the new superintendent arrived. The dialogue file rates this cluster medium: it also held the clerk's and Carolyn Towle's words, reassigned by override. |
| Robert McDevitt | Board member (Unity) | Seconded the agenda; moved to table the minutes; said the Abbey Group had been assumed to take over "everything"; asked for separate agenda items for lunch debt and lost revenue; argued the superintendent works for the board and the study should come first. |
| Jason Benware | Board member (Claremont) | Moved the agenda; asked for a public timeline of the revenue loss and why it happened two years running; distinguished lunch debt from lost revenue; proposed a joint policy subcommittee; nominated Carolyn Towle as treasurer; seconded the deferral of the study; moved the nonpublic session. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Board member (Claremont); Claremont vice chair | Reported on the superintendent contract negotiation; asked about the food-service compliance hire and the history of lunch debt; seconded the treasurer nomination; moved to defer the efficiency study until Mr. Tempesta started. |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member (Claremont); elected SAU 6 treasurer | Had asked for a public timeline when the loss "first erupted"; raised rising lunch balances; backed a policy subcommittee; accepted the treasurer post on condition of regular reconciliation to clear "the backlog". |
| Heather Whitney | Board member (Claremont) | Asked that the Abbey Group's role be clarified publicly; urged a written procedures manual for food-service compliance; joined the policy subcommittee; argued the board defines "the what, not the how". |
| Frank Sprague | Board member (Claremont); Claremont chair | Asked why the loss happened in both years and where the FY2018 money came from; joined the policy subcommittee. |
| Shannon Popescu | Board member (Unity) | Answered the roll. The attribution report suggests an unidentified member who asked about the study's timing may be Popescu or Rob Lovett Jr. |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member (Claremont) | Called in the roll; no answer is audible. See Shannon Popescu. |
| Prudence McCormick | Board member (Unity), Absent | Called in the roll without an answer; Erickson later: "We could put Pru on. She's not here." |
| Cory LeClair | Acting Superintendent, SAU 6 | Explained the tax effect of the lost reimbursement; said she learned of it in February; described the compliance hire and the removal of a one-person bottleneck; confirmed the SAU had no adopted policies; recommended starting from NHSBA samples. |
| Michael O'Neill | Business Administrator, SAU 6 (surname spelling unverified) | Promised a written timeline based on his corrective action plan; explained the late Unity food-service RFP; explained the treasurer's role and that external cash reconciliation was not being done. |
| Mary Woodman | Clerk and recording secretary | Called the roll and the nonpublic roll-call vote. |
| Bob Day | Unity School District treasurer (public comment; surname as heard) | Said the newest Unity financial policies he could find dated from 2004, 2006 and 2009. The dialogue file notes the surname is as heard and that coming treasurer may mean incoming. |
| Unidentified | Board members and others | A member who offered to fill in on the subcommittee and asked what an early study would gain; the pledge. 13 of 410 rows (3.2%) are Unidentified. No member of the public spoke at citizens' comments. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this meeting is posted in any district share, so this list is reconstructed from the chair's transitions on the recording ("We have an agenda in front of us"). Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:10 | Call to order, pledge, roll call | At least nine of eleven members present; see Board composition. |
| 0:01:52 | Agenda | Accepted as printed: Benware moved, McDevitt seconded, voice vote at 0:02:07. |
| 0:02:17 | Minutes of March 28, 2019 | Erickson's corrections pending; McDevitt moved to table; voice vote at 0:04:13. |
| 0:04:43 | Citizens' comments | None. |
| 0:04:59 | Update on superintendent search | Zullo: contract under negotiation. Information only. |
| 0:05:37 | Food service: loss of revenue | Discussion; business administrator to prepare a written timeline within a week; the item to go to the Claremont board on April 17. No vote. |
| 0:36:49 | Policies | SAU policy subcommittee of Erickson, Whitney and Sprague formed by consensus (0:46:02); no motion. |
| 0:47:16 | Election of SAU 6 treasurer | Benware nominated Carolyn Towle; Zullo seconded; voice vote at 0:49:17. |
| 0:49:36 | SAU efficiency study or forensic audit | Zullo moved to wait until Mr. Tempesta has started; Benware seconded; voice vote at 1:03:12, "Two nays" (not named). |
| 1:03:36 | Nonpublic session, RSA 91-A:3, II(a) and (c) | Benware moved, reading both exemptions; roll call from 1:04:32, all audible answers yes. The recording ends as the board goes in. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Times are the start of the cited exchange, taken from the CSV's own second count. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell for the full entry.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:02:27 | Minutes need work | Erickson: the draft's account of the February 21 roll-call vote to come out of nonpublic session is garbled, "two things that are merged in together" (0:03:48). Tabled. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:05:04 | Superintendent contract | Zullo: "we're in the process of" negotiating a contract; "We have information that we're going to review tonight as a board." | POSITIVE |
| 0:06:12 | Lost reimbursement: the tax effect | LeClair: "anytime you talk to the media, in my experience, they don't report all that you said." No deficit appropriation this year, but "it could have a tax impact on future years because we won't be able to return as much money to the taxpayers this year to offset future budgets". The current year is covered because "we still have unfilled positions this year that we're budgeted for that have never been filled" (0:07:25) and health-plan census changes. | MEDIUM |
| 0:09:24 | The public wants a timeline | Benware: people want "a timeline as to how this all went down" and ask, of a one-year mistake, "How do we make it two years?" | |
| 0:10:20 | Two years, one figure | LeClair: the published amount (transcribed 460, $60,000; the attribution report reads it as about $60,000) is not for this year alone: "That's the total amount for two years." "I learned of this issue this February." O'Neill at 0:11:05: "I did a corrective action plan" and will turn it into a timeline "from July 1st, 2017 when we switched to Abby Group" [Abbey Group]. | MEDIUM |
| 0:12:58 | Where to discuss it | Benware asks whether the district boards may discuss it separately; LeClair at 0:13:08: yes, the application is filed at the SAU level but the dollars are district-specific. Set for the Claremont board on April 17 (0:13:35). | |
| 0:14:55 | Abbey Group's role | Whitney: social media blames the contractor. Petrin at 0:15:14: "They have no role in filing." McDevitt at 0:15:44: when the contractor came in "nobody really knew what everything meant". O'Neill at 0:16:19: "there was certain expectations that I had that other people didn't meet", and the state's rules tightened after problems elsewhere. LeClair at 0:17:38: under USDA rules the district "cannot contract out certain filing" duties. | MEDIUM |
| 0:18:48 | Compliance hire and a bottleneck | LeClair: Danielle Skinner (spelling unverified) was hired in November for food-service compliance, not just collections. Before, everything "had to go through Mike. And he was the only one able to do some of those things", which "created a bottleneck when everything had to go through" him (0:20:33); roles were redistributed with "checks and balances" (0:20:56). | MEDIUM |
| 0:23:58 | Why lunch debt grew | O'Neill: federal rules ended the substitute meal, and the point-of-sale system now measures debt daily. LeClair at 0:25:16: "Our old reporting system was paper and pencil sheets in Ziploc bags." | |
| 0:26:04 | Why two years | Sprague: "What is what is the explanation for it happening two years in a row?" O'Neill at 0:26:47: the FY2019 problem was an RFP for Unity's food service; he "basically should have done the RFP sooner", and did not realize it would hold up everyone's claims (0:27:11). LeClair at 0:28:23: "It wasn't filed until January 30th." | MEDIUM |
| 0:28:37 | Procedures manual | Whitney asks for a written procedures manual; LeClair: "It's on her radar." Erickson at 0:32:41: the SAU should have a policy requiring such procedures, "an area where the essay board is lacking". | OBSERVATION |
| 0:35:24 | Where the money came from | Sprague: FY2019 was covered by vacant positions; for FY2018, "How did it get covered then? What was the source of that money?" Not answered at the meeting. | MEDIUM |
| 0:36:02 | Agenda discipline | McDevitt: lunch debt was discussed though only lost revenue was on the agenda; "it should have been on the agenda". LeClair at 0:36:37: "I can make that correction." | |
| 0:36:49 | No SAU policies | LeClair at 0:37:13: "we do not have a single adopted saw board" policy; the SAU borrows Claremont's or Unity's, which agree "just by chance". Erickson at 0:43:00: twice in two months the board needed a policy, including "what authority and responsibility can the board chair take in the in an emergency? And we had nothing to go with." Unity's treasurer at 0:41:23: Unity's newest financial policies date from 2004 to 2009. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:45:26 | Policy subcommittee | Volunteers Erickson, Whitney and Sprague. Chair at 0:46:02: "Do we need a official motion to accept them as our subcommittee?" then "All right. Everybody's comfortable with that." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:47:30 | No treasurer for a while | O'Neill: the treasurer signs vouchers and reconciles cash monthly as the auditors' external control; "right now we don't have that being completed" and "it's been a while since we've had a" treasurer at the SAU. Towle at 0:48:40 accepts so "the backlog gets taken care of". Elected at 0:49:17. | MEDIUM POSITIVE |
| 0:49:36 | Efficiency study | Erickson: "there are a lot of questions that have not yet been answered" about business-office procedures (0:49:59). Zullo and others would wait for the new superintendent's input; McDevitt at 0:53:03: "He works for us". Erickson at 0:52:35 mentions a study for $5,000. Whitney at 0:58:42: the board's role "is to define the what, not the how." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:02:42 | Study deferred | Zullo: "I'd like to just make a motion that we wait on an efficiency study until Mr. Tempesta has started." Benware seconds. At 1:03:24: "Two nays. Everybody else was a II." [aye]. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:03:36 | Nonpublic session | Benware moves under RSA 91-A:3, II(a) and (c), reading their text; roll call from 1:04:32. Chair at 1:05:06: inviting "the board and, Cory, acting superintendent" into the session. | POSITIVE |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on April 11, 2019, cited as it then read. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. Six flags follow, ordered by severity.
MEDIUM Two years of federal school-meal reimbursement were lost to late filings, with the district's claims work resting on one person
The acting superintendent said the published loss was "the total amount for two years" (FY2018 and FY2019; about $60,000 by the attribution report's reading of a garbled figure) and that she learned of it in February (0:10:20). For FY2019 the business administrator said the Unity food-service contract had to be re-procured and he "basically should have done the RFP sooner" (0:26:47); the complete application "wasn't filed until January 30th" (0:28:23). For FY2018 members described confusion over which duties passed to the Abbey Group when the service was contracted out in July 2017 (0:15:44, 0:16:19). The federal rule as it read in 2019 left those duties with the district: a school food authority contracting with a management company must "Retain signature authority on the State agency-school food authority agreement, free and reduced price policy statement and claims" (7 CFR 210.16(a)(5)), and such contracts run no longer than one year with renewals that "may not exceed 4 additional years" (210.16(d)). The acting superintendent also described a one-person bottleneck, since everything "had to go through Mike" (0:20:33). The FY2019 shortfall was covered by budgeted positions left vacant (0:07:25); where the FY2018 money came from was asked and not answered (0:35:24). Graded MEDIUM as a material control weakness admitted in public: the exact procurement or filing rule breached is not established from the recording, and the reimbursement rules that set the claim deadlines were not verified for this page. The promised written timeline had not reached the Claremont board by April 17, six days later.
Sources: 7 CFR 210.16(a)(5) and (d) (2019 annual edition, revised as of January 1, 2019): the school food authority retains signature authority on the agreement and claims; management-company contracts one year plus at most four renewals.
MEDIUM The SAU had gone without a treasurer, so its cash was not being reconciled by anyone outside the business office
Explaining the office before the election, the business administrator said the SAU treasurer signs vouchers and reconciles cash each month against his books, the external control auditors start from, and that "right now we don't have that being completed" because "it's been a while since we've had a" treasurer (0:47:30, 0:48:05). Carolyn Towle accepted the post on condition that "the backlog gets taken care of" (0:48:40). RSA 194-C:5 required the SAU board to meet between April 1 and June 1 each year and "organize by choosing a chairperson, a secretary, and a treasurer". Electing a treasurer on April 11 met that timetable for 2019; what the record shows is a gap before it, of unstated length, during which the SAU's cash had no independent reconciliation, in the same period as the food-service losses of flag 1 and the audit backlog discussed at the April 17 Claremont meeting. Graded MEDIUM as a control weakness disclosed by the business office itself.
Sources: RSA 194-C:5 (source note 1996, 298:3 only, so the current text governed in 2019): annual organization choosing a chairperson, secretary and treasurer.
OBSERVATION The SAU had no adopted policies of its own, and the subcommittee formed to write them was created without a vote
The acting superintendent said "we do not have a single adopted saw board" policy and that the SAU relied on Claremont's or Unity's, which agreed "just by chance" (0:37:13); she listed procurement, grant management and time-and-effort policies as ones an SAU needs (0:40:38). The vice chair said the board twice in two months had nothing to go on, once on the chair's authority in an emergency (0:43:00). No statute verified for this page requires an SAU to adopt its own policies, so this is an observation; the federal-program policies she named are the kind the district's auditors later tested. The policy subcommittee of Erickson, Whitney and Sprague was formed by consensus after the chair asked whether a motion was needed (0:46:02). As a subordinate body of the SAU board it was itself a public body under RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d), with its own notice and minutes duties; no records of it from 2019 are online.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (2019 codification; source note ends 2008, 354:1): committees and subcommittees are public bodies.
OBSERVATION The board deferred an efficiency study of the SAU business office despite members' stated concerns about its procedures
The vice chair said "there are a lot of questions that have not yet been answered" about business-office procedures (0:49:59); members debated whether a study (a $5,000 figure is mentioned at 0:52:35) should precede or follow the new superintendent's arrival. The board voted to wait until Mr. Tempesta started (1:02:42, 1:03:12), with "Two nays" not named on the recording. Deferring to an incoming chief executive is a legitimate governance choice and several members explained it on the record. It is noted because the same concerns recur: on May 6 the Claremont chair described "significant dropped balls" at the SAU and a poorly defined chain of command (see the joint meeting page). No statute applies.
Sources: the recording as cited. No statutory rule applies.
OBSERVATION No agenda, packet or minutes are online; the draft minutes under review misstated a nonpublic roll-call vote
MAP.md section 98 records that neither district Drive share holds anything older than 2022 (checked 9/26/26). That is a limit of what the district posts online, not evidence that records were never made: the board reviewed draft minutes and tabled them for corrections. The vice chair said the drafts' account of the February 21 vote to come out of nonpublic session merged two motions (0:02:44, 0:03:48). RSA 91-A:2, II required minutes naming "the members who made or seconded each motion"; on the recording the two members voting no on the efficiency study are not named, and the recording stops as the nonpublic session begins, so whether the board returned to public session, took any vote, or sealed the nonpublic minutes cannot be seen. The project's missing-records rule is applied on its online-availability limb.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1): minutes content and availability; Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 98.
POSITIVE The board aired the reimbursement failure in open session, elected a treasurer on the statutory timetable, and stated its nonpublic grounds in full
The acting superintendent corrected her own earlier press account of the tax effect (0:06:12), and the board questioned the business administrator in public on why the loss happened twice, asked for a written public timeline, and agreed to separate agenda items so the public would not confuse lunch debt with lost revenue (0:09:24, 0:36:02). The treasurer election met RSA 194-C:5's April-to-June organization window (flag 2). The nonpublic motion named RSA 91-A:3, II(a) and (c) and read their text, and the clerk took a roll call (1:03:36, 1:04:32), as RSA 91-A:3, I(b) required. One caveat: the vice chair said earlier that the contract negotiators had "information that we're going to review tonight as a board" (0:05:04); if the new superintendent's contract was a subject of the session, the hiring ground in II(b) was not among those stated. The recording does not show what was discussed.
Sources: RSA 91-A:3, I(b) and II(a)-(c) (2019 codification; source note ends 2016, 30:1 and 280:1); RSA 194-C:5.
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 10321, "SAU #6 SCHOOL BOARD MEETING of 4-11-19": Claremont Community Television. Every timestamp on this page links into this recording.
- No Drive material: neither the Claremont nor the SAU 6 share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (MAP.md, checked 9/26/26). No agenda, packet, corrective action plan, timeline or minutes for this meeting were located.
- Related pages: Claremont School Board, April 17, 2019 (timeline not yet delivered; audit questionnaire); Claremont School Board, May 1, 2019; Joint meeting with the City Council, May 6, 2019.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/10321 SAU6041119.mp4.CSV (410 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/10321 SAU6041119.mp4Input/Transcripts/10321 SAU6041119.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/10321 SAU6041119.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 98
Laws and rules cited on this page