Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part, as named in the project's dialogue file and the clerk's roll call (read at 0:03:42 to 0:04:05). Members are listed first. Where the dialogue file leaves a voice Unidentified, this page does too.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Michael Petrin | Chair, SAU 6 board (Claremont) | Presided; set the January 2 hearing date. Heard in the roll as Mike. Petra here. |
| Frank Sprague | Claremont member; Claremont board chair | Gave the Claremont update, including the notice defect behind the December 12 district meeting (0:07:00); questioned budget lines. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Claremont member; Claremont vice chair | Praised the budget presentation; argued for equity between the SAU raise and the bargaining units. |
| Jason Benware | Claremont member | Proposed the 2% raise, suggested approval by email, and moved the budget to hearing. |
| Carolyn Towle | Claremont member | Reported on the Capital Improvement Committee; abstained on the October 10 minutes as absent from that meeting. |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Claremont member | Moved the October 10 minutes and seconded the budget motion (by the chair's account, 0:05:59 and 1:15:07); spoke for the Capital Improvement Committee (0:11:14). Heard in the roll as Rob. Beloved junior. |
| Heather Whitney | Claremont member | Named in the roll; one short remark is attributed to her (1:14:46). |
| Marjorie Erickson | Unity member; SAU 6 vice chair | Answered the roll (Erickson. Here., 0:03:40). The dialogue file attributes no other speech to her by name. |
| Prudence McCormick | Unity member | Asked to join the SAU policy work (0:20:24), asked about Medicaid and the rent line, and on the salary increase said "I think 2% is a good place holder" (1:16:45). |
| Robert McDevitt, Gary Bader, Shannon Popescu (probable) | Unity members | Named in the roll; the roll's Sharon is probably Shannon Popescu (a hypothesis in the attribution report). None is identified speaking. |
| Unidentified | Unity member, male | Gave the Unity update on the master plan, a principal search and Unity's budget start (0:18:22); voiced concern that 2% was not sufficient (1:15:48) and voted no. The attribution report's guess that this is Robert McDevitt is not adopted. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Had no report; spoke on grants management. |
| Richard Seaman | Business Administrator, SAU 6 | Presented the FY2021 SAU budget; had started "the beginning of October" (0:34:25). |
| Mary Woodman | Clerk | Read the roll; took the motions; noted that the SAU budget is usually completed "By the end of December" (1:19:28). |
| No citizens | Citizens' comments | "Good citizens. Comments. Seeing none" (0:06:15). |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this meeting is posted online, though members refer to one in front of them. This outline is reconstructed from the chair's transitions. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:03:04 | Call to order; pledge; roll call | Twelve names read. |
| 0:04:08 | Agenda | Amended to strike the superintendent's report; motion Benware, second Lovett by the chair's account (0:05:16); voice vote. |
| 0:05:25 | Minutes of October 10, 2019 | Approved; motion Lovett, second Zullo, Towle abstaining (0:05:59). |
| 0:06:15 | Citizens' comments | None. |
| 0:06:15 | Claremont School Board update | Returned state aid, the December 12 meeting, policies, capital improvements, budget and negotiations. |
| 0:18:15 | Unity School Board update | Master plan, principal search, budget, policies. |
| 0:22:38 | SAU 6 FY2021 budget | Presentation and line review. Motion (Benware, second Lovett) to move $1,727,004.01 "to the public hearing scheduled for" a date "To be determined" (1:13:54); carried by voice vote with at least one no; no tally stated (1:17:08). Hearing then set for January 2, 2020 (1:21:32). |
| 1:21:47 | Next meeting; adjournment | SAU policies to be distributed at the January 2 meeting. Motion to adjourn, voice vote (1:22:46). |
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 |
|---|
| 0:04:13 | No superintendent's report | Towle asked about a superintendent's report; Tempesta: "We're just going to do the budget." The item was struck. | |
| 0:06:33 | Claremont: the returned state money | Sprague: the district chose "to, be fair to the taxpayers and return half of the money" and invest "the $650,000" in programs. On the notices: "we didn't put the notice of the public hearing on the C web page"; "we had a public meeting last night, and then we're going to have a district meeting on next Thursday to ratify and to cure the defect" (0:07:29). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:09:26 | Capital improvements | "next year we're getting 2 million, 2 million plus in infrastructure aid"; the committee aims "to literally leave no penny unspent". Towle: results to be presented in January (0:11:01). | |
| 0:11:22 | Claremont budget and negotiations | "it's been tough trying to reconstruct everything"; target of January 8 to finish; "we're busily negotiating four different contracts" (0:12:14). | |
| 0:14:37 | Did the money have to go back? | Zullo asked whether returning it was required (answer: No.) and whether the board could have kept it all; Benware: "If we had a public hearing about it and it was voted that way. Yes." Benware: "we had to use it. In this fiscal year" so "the tax rate could be set" (0:17:05). | |
| 0:18:22 | Unity update | A principal search committee; "We will start the budget process on the 19th." McCormick asked that Unity join the SAU policy review (0:20:24). | |
| 0:22:49 | A budget rebuilt from a found binder | "we actually found these red notebooks"; "I really didn't have any background at all on the Saw budget". Zullo: "this is the best presentation we've ever had of the budget the entire time that I've been on the board" (0:23:53). Wages, health insurance and benefits are "83% of the budget" (0:25:08). | POSITIVE |
| 0:44:57 | 2.5% or 2%? | Seaman: 2.5% is a placeholder, "this isn't a merit increase"; "The inflation rate is coming in right in the 2% range". At 2%, "the total line item goes from 937 to 933" (0:46:26). Benware: "I propose that perhaps you adjust that to 2%" (0:48:37). | |
| 0:50:32 | Technology positions | Technology services "down $125,000 from last year"; a network administrator and a tech integrator "are not determined to be included in the fiscal 21 budget". | |
| 0:53:18 | Grants management | Grant management moves in-house; "the way grants work in New Hampshire, they actually have a two and a half year cycle"; "we're still spending on fiscal 17, fiscal 18, fiscal 19 grants" (0:53:47). Title and IDEA funds are "multiple millions of dollars" (0:58:39). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:58:50 | Audit budget | Benware: about $11,000 budgeted for auditors "and we've blown that right out of the water several times"; 30,000 proposed. Seaman has "the engagement contract for fiscal 18" at "$27,000" (0:59:19). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:02:38 | Merit pool | Benware: merit is to "reward people for going above and beyond"; "maximum 3%". Seaman: "It's a one time payment based on that year's merit" (1:04:21); unspent money "just goes as a surplus". | |
| 1:05:45 | The bottom line | Petrin: "a decrease in the last from last year of 100 and roughly $168,000." McCormick asked why maintenance-building rent fell; Seaman: "we don't actually rent anything that I've been able to find"; Sprague: "Claremont was renting to itself" (1:07:48). | |
| 1:11:53 | Approve by email? | Benware: "Can you can you put the 2% in, send it to us via email, and can we ratify it to Mike of the board chair?" Zullo: "We can't all email him or." Seaman: "Can we come up with a number right now?" The board voted in the meeting instead. | POSITIVE |
| 1:13:38 | Motion to hearing | "1,727,000, $4 and a penny." Benware moved "to the public hearing scheduled for", Seaman: "To be determined." A Unity member: "I'm just voicing my concern that 2% is not sufficient" (1:15:59). Vote: "Nay, nay." then "I'm a nay." and Towle: "Forget that Mary." (1:17:12). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:17:53 | Is a hearing needed; when? | Benware: "at least 14 days from the posting." Seaman: "Can we follow up and see whether or not indeed a public hearing is needed"; then "We do. We do need one." Benware: "We need to know the absolute drop dead date" (1:19:16). Clerk: "By the end of December that you had the essay." McCormick: "They usually do have it completed in December." Benware: "Why don't we just do January 2nd so we're safe." (1:19:47). Seaman: "So we'll try for January 2nd." (1:21:32). | MEDIUM |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on December 5, 2019. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Each flag names the rule it rests on; where no verified rule applies, it is recorded as an observation. Five flags follow, ordered by severity.
MEDIUM The board scheduled its budget hearing, and so its final budget vote, after the statutory January 1 date
RSA 194-C:9, I, in the text in force on this date, provides: "At a meeting held before January 1, the school administrative unit board shall adopt a budget" for the next fiscal year. The statute requires no public hearing on the SAU budget. On this recording the board treated a hearing as necessary ("We do. We do need one.", 1:18:14), asked for "the absolute drop dead date" (1:19:16), heard the clerk and a Unity member say the SAU budget is usually completed in December (1:19:28), and then chose January 2, 2020 "so we're safe" (1:19:47). The motion adopted tonight sent the $1,727,004.01 figure "to the public hearing", not adopted it; final approval came on January 2, 2020 (see the January 2 page, flag 1). Nothing on the record suggests the districts had adopted the alternative procedure of RSA 194-C:9-a, to which paragraph III of RSA 194-C:9 refers. MEDIUM here because tonight's decision is the process gap that produced the late adoption; the missed date itself is graded on the January 2 page.
Sources: RSA 194-C:9, I and III (2019 codification; source note 1996, 298:3; 2003, 279:1); RSA 194-C:9-a (2019 codification).
POSITIVE Members declined to approve the budget by individual emails to the chair and voted on it in the meeting
Benware suggested that members each email their agreement with the revised 2% budget to the chair so that it could be ratified without another meeting (1:12:16). Zullo objected that "We can't all email him", the business administrator asked instead for a number to vote on that night (1:12:30), and the board moved and voted in open session. RSA 91-A:2-a, I requires public bodies to "deliberate on matters only in meetings", and ¶II bars "sequential communications among members" used "to circumvent the spirit and purpose" of the chapter. The board's choice kept the decision where the law puts it.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2-a, I and II (source note 2008, 303:4; unamended, so the same text governed in 2019).
OBSERVATION Grant money three fiscal years old was described as still being spent, and audit costs had repeatedly exceeded the budget
The business administrator said the SAU is "still spending on fiscal 17, fiscal 18, fiscal 19 grants" because grants in New Hampshire "have a two and a half year cycle" (0:53:18). Under the federal Tydings amendment, education formula funds not obligated in their first year remain available for obligation for one additional fiscal year, which with the July start yields a period of about 27 months; spending after that can be lawful only for obligations already made. Whether the statement described late liquidation of earlier obligations or something else cannot be told from the recording. Separately, a member said audit costs had blown the roughly $11,000 budget "several times", and the administrator cited a $27,000 engagement for the FY2018 audit (0:58:50, 0:59:19). Neither point is a finding; both are the kind of detail an auditor's report for those years would settle.
Sources: 20 U.S.C. 1225(b) (availability of appropriations for one additional fiscal year).
OBSERVATION A split vote on the SAU budget was taken by voice, and part of the response was withdrawn from the clerk's notes on the floor
When the chair called the budget motion, voices answered "Nay, nay.", another said "I'm a nay.", and Towle told the clerk "Forget that Mary." (1:17:12, 1:17:17); no count or roll call was taken. No statute required a roll call here (the SAU board's weighted voting under RSA 194-C:8 applies only on demand), and RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes to record the mover and seconder and the decisions, not a tally. Still, the recording alone cannot show which members opposed, and the minutes that would record it are not online. The same update also carries the Claremont chair's account of the notice defect that forced the December 12 district meeting (0:07:29); see the December 12 page.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1); RSA 194-C:8 (1996, 298:3).
POSITIVE The SAU budget was presented line by line in public, with staffing and total compensation shown, before any vote
The business administrator took the board through the staffing page, the object-code summary and every line, answered questions on Medicaid billing, grants management, audit fees and a "rent" line he said paid for nothing he could find, and modeled the effect of a 2% raise on the spot (0:24:22 to 0:46:26). Several members said it was the clearest budget they had seen. No statute prescribes how an SAU budget is presented; doing it this openly, on camera, exceeds the minimum and gave viewers the figures the board voted on.
Sources: Practice beyond statutory minimums; RSA 194-C:9 prescribes no presentation format.
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/10639 SAU6120519.mp4.CSV (765 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/10639 SAU6120519.mp4Input/Transcripts/10639 SAU6120519.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/10639 SAU6120519.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 118
Laws and rules cited on this page