Claremont School Board — March 4, 2020

OBSERVATION Six days before the town election, the chair, a member and the business administrator spoke for the ballot articles at a televised meeting

At 1:48:45 the chair turned to "the vote on Tuesday", described the main budget and the three negotiated agreements, rejected a newspaper's description of "a spending spree", and closed: "Support your schools. Support our kids." (1:51:50). Benware followed at 1:52:11, answering a letter to the editor and urging viewers not to "take the word of somebody" in a newspaper. The business administrator then added that the district was "still looking at a 56% reduction in tax rate" and called it "an important budget that will materially change the future of the financial makeup of Claremont School District" (1:56:57, 1:57:32). The chair was himself one of two candidates for the two open seats (1:47:47).

RSA 659:44-a, as in force in 2020, barred a "public employee, as defined in RSA 273-A:1, IX" from electioneering "while in the performance of his or her official duties", and defined electioneering as acting "in any way specifically designed to influence the vote of a voter on any question or office". RSA 273-A:1, IX excludes "Persons elected by popular vote", so the statute does not reach board members speaking for their own budget. Whether it reaches the business administrator depends on whether his post falls within the statute's exclusions (for example, duties implying "a confidential relationship to the public employer") and on whether a tax-rate projection with that closing remark was "specifically designed to influence the vote"; neither question is settled by the record. His figures are largely factual. The flag is recorded as an observation for a reader weighing how the district presented its budget; the chair's "56% increase" remark in reply appears to be a slip or a transcription error, since both men were describing a reduction.

Sources: RSA 659:44-a (2019 codification; source note ends 2016, 176:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017); RSA 273-A:1, IX (2019 codification): exclusions from "public employee".

OBSERVATION The board's own member said the February 23 retreat minutes left out "a lot of conversations"

The February 23 goal-setting retreat was held on a Sunday and has no recording in the project's corpus; the business administrator refers to "our meeting we had on Sunday two weeks ago" (0:57:59). At 0:02:50 Carolyn Towle objected to its minutes: "There was a lot of things missing. A lot of conversations weren't included." The clerk asked her to send "what I missed" and whether she had "notes written down". The minutes were tabled here, tabled again on May 6, and approved on June 3. RSA 91-A:2, II, as in force in 2020, required the minutes of every meeting to "include the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions". A brief description is the legal floor, so omitted conversations are not necessarily a defect; the point is that a retreat without a recording depends entirely on its minutes, and a member present found them incomplete. What the final version says is not available here.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, so the text in force in 2020): minutes contents; related pages: May 6, 2020 and June 3, 2020.

OBSERVATION No agenda, packet, notice or minutes for this meeting are posted online, though the recording shows a packet and minutes existed

MAP.md records that neither district Drive share holds anything before July 2022 (checked 9/26/26). The curriculum specialist referred to "your board packet" (1:33:00), and these minutes were approved on May 6, 2020. RSA 91-A:2, II, as in force in 2020, required minutes to be "open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting"; whether that was met cannot be tested from here. The limb of the project's missing-records rule applied is the online-availability observation.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification); Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 125.

OBSERVATION Several voice votes have no audible second, and the program of studies was approved with no audible motion and with known errors outstanding

The program of studies was put straight to "All in favor?" (1:45:00) after the chair said "We're going to provisionally approve it tonight" and asked that later changes come back before the document is posted (1:44:34); errors had already been found (1:43:49). No motion or second is audible. The donations were moved by Benware (1:45:25) with no audible second; the Youth in Government trip and adjournment were seconded by unidentified voices; the agenda motion and its second sit in a single segment. RSA 91-A:2, II, as in force in 2020, required "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion" to be recorded in the minutes, which the recording cannot show. A provisional approval also leaves open which version of the program of studies the board adopted.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification): movers and seconders recorded in the minutes.