Participants
Everyone in the record, as named in the dialogue CSV, with spellings checked against the district's minutes of this session. Transcript renderings are given where they differ. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Tracy Pope | School district moderator (presiding) | Called the session to order (0:01:58), read the HB 1129 procedure (0:05:11), conducted the voice vote on the 2020 minutes (0:10:06), introduced both articles and closed the session. Named "Tracy Pope, Moderator" in the minutes. |
| Heather Whitney | Vice chair, Claremont School Board | Led the pledge and introduced the board and officers in the chair's absence (0:04:07); said she did not see the clerk (0:04:26). Zullo confirms at 0:03:50: "No, no, there's the vice chair. Heather." |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member | Read Article 1 at 0:11:29. Rendered Rob Lovatt, junior. |
| Jason Benware | Board member; budget subcommittee member | Moved approval of the 2020 minutes (0:10:28) and read Article 2 (0:12:27). Before the session asked whether the default budget was higher than the proposed (0:00:35). Rendered Jason Ben where, Jason Benwell. |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member | Seconded the minutes motion: "Second. Carolyn tall second." (0:10:37). Medium-confidence attribution for her pre-session remarks. |
| Michael Petrin | Board member; budget subcommittee member | Introduced as present (Mike patron). No row of the dialogue file is attributed to him. The district's minutes nonetheless record a statement by him (see flag 1). |
| Rebecca Zullo | Board member | One row, at 0:03:50, correcting the moderator on who was vice chair (an uncertain attribution inferred from the moderator's question). |
| Frank Sprague | Chair, Claremont School Board; budget subcommittee chair | Absent ("Frank's not going to be here tonight.", 0:01:01). |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Introduced the staff (0:02:52); recognized the budget subcommittee and the strategic-plan goals (0:13:39); explained that more than half of the $584,000 in reductions was "turnover savings" (0:38:23). Rendered Tim Pasta. |
| Richard Seaman | Assistant superintendent for finance and HR, SAU 6 | Presented the budget by location, the revenue estimates, the tax rate and the default budget (0:15:31 to 0:38:02). Before the session told the assistant superintendent that the document sent to the board "was not" the correct one (0:00:15). Rendered Richard Siemens. |
| Donna Magoon | Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6 | Recirculated the corrected budget paperwork before the call to order (0:01:39). Thanked by the moderator for organizing the meetings, legal notices and "special mailings to all the voters" (0:04:30). |
| Jeff Small | Technology director, SAU 6 | Ran the technology from the Stevens auditorium; asked to unmute participants for the voice vote (0:10:06). No attributed row. |
| Melissa Small | SAU 6 administrative assistant | Designated recipient of voter submissions and seat reservations (0:05:41, 0:07:28). Introduced by the superintendent; not a speaker. |
| Ben Nester | Special education director, SAU 6 | Expected to "join us in a little bit" (0:02:52). No attributed row. |
| Matt Upton | School district attorney | "toggling in between the Newport meeting that's going on simultaneously" (0:03:23). No attributed row. |
| Mary Woodman | School district clerk | Not seen: asked whether she is joining, Whitney answers "Not that I'm aware of. She's not. I don't see her present." (0:04:26). The minutes of the session are signed in her name. |
| Unidentified | Various | 15 rows: pledge chorus, pre-session remarks and one "Yeah." during the presentation. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this session is posted in any district share. The district's minutes give the order of business, and this list follows the moderator's transitions on the recording, which agree with them except as noted in flag 1. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:01:58 | Call to order; pledge | "Good evening. I'd like to call to order and welcome you to the February 1st virtual deliberative session." Pledge led by vice chair Whitney. |
| 0:02:38 | Introductions and thanks | Superintendent introduces staff; Whitney introduces six board members; the moderator thanks Magoon, Melissa Small and Jeff Small. |
| 0:05:11 | Procedures under HB 1129 | Read in full by the moderator. Minutes: "The Moderator then explained this year the Claremont School District's Annual meeting will be conducted in accordance with the requirements of House Bill 1129." |
| 0:10:06 | Minutes of the February 5, 2020 deliberative session | Moved by Benware, seconded by Towle; voice vote of unmuted participants, "The motion passes unanimously." (0:10:59). Minutes: "passed by a Voice Vote." |
| 0:10:59 | Article 1: election of school district officials | Read by Lovett at 0:11:29. Voters reminded to submit comments by 4 p.m. February 4. |
| 0:12:20 | Article 2: main budget | Read by Benware (0:12:27): $37,785,406, default budget $37,762,398, "The school Board recommends this article." Joint presentation by the superintendent and Seaman (0:13:39 to 0:40:02). |
| 0:40:45 | Close | Reminders of access, submissions and the February 4, 6:30 p.m. second session. "That concludes tonight's meeting. Good night to everyone." (0:41:49) |
Discussion timeline
Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Times are the start of the cited row, 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 |
|---|
| 0:00:10 | Budget paperwork corrected before the session | Magoon: "Hey, Richard. The document that I sent out to the school board. That was the correct one. Correct?" Seaman: "It was not. I just sent over to you what was the correct one? Because I hadn't looked closely at page three. So the one I just sent you has the default budget on it." Benware: "Is the default budget higher than the the proposed." Seaman: "No, it's actually about $0.03 lower." (0:00:38) | OBSERVATION |
| 0:00:58 | The chair is absent | The moderator: "Some people that aren't here. Like Frank's not here." Benware: "Frank's not going to be here tonight." and "Heather's going to do the Pledge of Allegiance tonight." | |
| 0:02:11 | Pledge without a flag | Whitney: "If there's no one in the auditorium. Do we do the Pledge of Allegiance without a flag?" | |
| 0:02:52 | Staff introduced | Magoon, Seaman ("assistant superintendent of finance and HR"), Jeff Small ("the straw that stirs the drink over there in the auditorium right now"), Ben Nester to join later, Melissa Small, and attorney Matt Upton, "toggling in between the Newport meeting that's going on simultaneously" (0:03:23). | |
| 0:03:45 | Who is vice chair; the clerk not present | The moderator to Zullo: "Are you the. You're the vice chair, right?" Answer: "No, no, there's the vice chair. Heather." Whitney introduces "Rob Lovatt, junior, Carolyn Tol, Jason Ben where Mike patron and Rebecca Zullo and myself. Heather Whitney." (0:04:07). On the clerk: "Not that I'm aware of. She's not. I don't see her present." (0:04:26) | MEDIUM |
| 0:05:11 | The HB 1129 procedure | Submissions by email or at the SAU offices until 4 p.m. February 4, verified "against the checklist for eligibility"; "No live comments or questions from registered voters will be allowed at either the February 1st or the February 4th, 2021 virtual meetings." (0:06:27). Seats in the Stevens auditorium by reservation with Melissa Small (0:07:28). Consequence of disapproving the process read at 0:09:18. | |
| 0:10:06 | Voice vote on the 2020 minutes | "At this time, I'd like to ask our technology person to unmute everyone that's participating in the meeting so that we can have a voice vote for the minutes." Benware moves, Towle seconds. "I'm going to do the voice vote a little bit differently. I'm going to first ask if anyone is opposed to this motion. Please signify by saying nay." (0:10:41) Then: "Hearing none. Everyone in favor of this motion, please signify by saying I, I. The ayes have it. The motion passes unanimously." (0:10:59) | OBSERVATION |
| 0:11:29 | Article 1 read | "Article one election of school district officials to elect a moderator, district clerk, and district treasurer each for a one year term and three school board members each for a three year term." The moderator invites "Any registered voter wishing to speak for or against Attica one" to send a submission, and closes discussion (0:11:43). | |
| 0:12:27 | Article 2 read | "totaling $37,785,406. Should they should this article be defeated? The default budget shall be $37,762,398, which is the same as last year, with certain adjustments required by previous action of the Claremont School District or by law." "The school Board recommends this article." (0:13:07) | |
| 0:13:39 | The budget subcommittee and the strategic plan | The superintendent recognizes "the members of the budget. Subcommittee chairman Frank Sprague, Jason, Ben and Mike patron, who met with Richard and myself and all of the members of the administrative team. Over the course of approximately, I think we did it in two, two weeks or three weeks." "We went through every line of every budget" (0:14:03). Goals: "increasing the student time on learning", "Recruiting and retaining the best and brightest staff" (0:14:40). | MEDIUM |
| 0:15:43 | Budget by location | Elementary out-of-district special education "a significant reduction from a little over 500,000 to 120,000 for next year" (0:16:36); Bluff up "$342,000", mostly special programs moved there (0:17:36); the middle school up "almost $240,000", out-of-district placements (0:18:46); Stevens: two students who moved in over the summer "cost the district close to a half $1 million" (0:19:36); a high school autism program at Sugar River "to bring back three students who are currently out placed" (0:20:34); a nurse and a guidance position at the technical center (0:21:00). | POSITIVE |
| 0:22:03 | One-time money and position reductions | Maintenance "is down by a little bit over $1.5 million": last year's capital work was paid from "$2.9 million of one time money" from the state (0:22:31). "there is included in here yet to be finalized, a reduction in positions of $584,000." (0:23:34) Technology investment down, helped by CARES Act money (0:24:26). No warrant articles this year: "as promised, there are no Warren articles for this year", so the total falls from 39.3 million to 37.785, "a reduction in the budget of $1.55 million" (0:25:50). | |
| 0:26:31 | Revenues | District assessment up about $540,000; fund balance used to reduce taxes, "we do tend to report a surplus in that $400,000 range" (0:27:39); $400,000 drawn from the Special Ed Expendable Trust funded with one-time state money (0:28:11); adequacy aid: "a $392,000 reduction in the adequacy in the adequacy grant from last year to this year", which "we absolutely did not expect" (0:29:43, 0:30:11); catastrophic aid estimated in "the $600,000 area" (0:31:17); Medicaid estimate restored to 500,000 (0:31:53). | |
| 0:33:02 | Tax rate | Amount to be raised by taxes "$17,038,244"; "a local tax rate of $22.71", "a total tax rate recommended in this budget of $24.53 as compared to last year's of $23.93, or an increase of $0.60." (0:33:45) | POSITIVE |
| 0:34:21 | The default budget explained | "some of the things you take out are one time expenditures. For example, the $1.5 million" ... "We've also told you that we're looking at $584,000 of position reductions. That does not carry forward into the default budget" (0:34:52); contractual, health-care and special-education increases are added back (0:35:21). "what we come up with is a default budget of 34 million to 97, three, 98" [transcript garble; the warrant reads $37,762,398] (0:36:13); "the amount raised by taxes is 17,015,236" and "a total tax rate of $24.50. So the default budget is $0.03 lower than the recommended budget." (0:37:30) | OBSERVATION |
| 0:38:23 | What the $584,000 in reductions is | The superintendent: "That's not all people, you know, losing positions and things like that. More than half of that money is what's known as turnover savings". Also "a consolidation of a sped position of, of a district wide curriculum positions" (0:38:51); "The middle school and high school schedules are not, completed yet" (0:39:19). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:40:02 | Close | "any registered voters wishing to speak for or against article two, the main budget? I remind you comments, concerns or requested amendments can be submitted to Melissa Small between now and 4 p.m. February 4th". After the close, Benware asks Magoon a question and says "It's nothing that needs to be on the meeting." (0:42:26) | |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the session against the law in force on February 1, 2021, including the 2020 session law under which the district chose to hold its annual meeting. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. Four flags follow, ordered by severity.
MEDIUM The clerk was not seen, no clerk pro tempore was chosen, and the minutes later filed in her name record a statement the recording does not contain
RSA 197:20 requires the district clerk to "keep a true record of all the doings of each meeting" and provides: "If the clerk is absent at any meeting a clerk pro tempore shall be chosen." Asked whether Mary Woodman was joining, the vice chair answered at 0:04:26 that she did not see her present, and nobody was chosen to act in her place. The minutes that were eventually approved are "Respectfully submitted Mary Woodman Clerk"; she may have worked from the broadcast, which the record does not say. Measured against the recording, the minutes have two problems. First, they state that "The Moderator recognized Board Member, Michael Petrin" and that he recognized the budget committee members "who worked mornings for fifteen days". No row of this recording is attributed to Petrin: it was the superintendent who recognized the subcommittee, over "two weeks or three weeks" (0:13:39). Petrin did make such a statement three days later, at the February 4 session (see the February 4 page), in different words. Second, the minutes omit the whole twenty-seven-minute budget presentation, including the tax rates of $24.53 and $24.50. The minutes were approved only on November 3, 2022, after the February 9, 2022 session approved the February 4 set alone. The MEDIUM limb applies because the record mitigates: minutes exist and were approved, and whether the minute-taker watched the session cannot be known from here.
Sources: RSA 197:20 (source note ends 1963, 120:5): true record; clerk pro tempore when the clerk is absent; 2.1.21 Minutes from Virtual District Meeting; November 3, 2022 page (approval).
OBSERVATION Voters were barred from speaking, but everyone online was unmuted to vote on last year's minutes, with no check of who was voting
The procedure the moderator read allowed "No live comments or questions from registered voters" (0:06:27). Yet at 0:10:06 she had every participant unmuted "so that we can have a voice vote for the minutes", asked for nays first, heard none, and declared the 2020 minutes approved unanimously (0:10:59). The district's minutes describe the step as enabling "registered voters to participate in the voice vote". Nothing on the recording shows how anyone online was confirmed to be a registered voter, as the written submissions were ("verified against the checklist for eligibility"). RSA 40:4, incorporated into the first session by RSA 40:13, IV, lets the moderator "prescribe rules of proceeding", and approving minutes appropriates nothing, so no rule is shown to be broken. The point for a reader is the inconsistency: the one question put to a live vote was the one that did not matter to the budget.
Sources: RSA 40:4 (moderator's duties; may prescribe rules of proceeding; last amended 2019, 192:1); RSA 40:13, IV (2019 codification); 2.1.21 minutes.
OBSERVATION The default budget reached the board on the day of the session, and how the $584,000 in position reductions was treated is unclear
RSA 40:13, XI(a) required the default budget to be "disclosed and presented for questions and discussion at the first budget hearing". At the January 13 hearing the figure had not been calculated (see the January 13 page, flag 1), and the recording here opens with the assistant superintendent for finance saying the document the board had been sent was not the correct one and that "the one I just sent you has the default budget on it" (0:00:15). In the presentation he listed the $584,000 of position reductions among the items that do "not carry forward into the default budget" (0:34:52); the superintendent then said "More than half of that money is what's known as turnover savings" (0:38:23), and Seaman had called the reductions "yet to be finalized" (0:23:34). RSA 40:13, IX(b) reduces the default budget only by "salaries and benefits of positions that have been eliminated in the proposed budget". Savings from hiring replacements lower on the salary scale are not eliminated positions. The recording does not let a reader tell whether the default figure of $37,762,398 was reduced by the whole $584,000 or only by positions actually eliminated; the default budget form that would show it is not available.
Sources: RSA 40:13, IX(b) and XI(a) (2019 codification; last amended 2019, 192:2, the text in force in 2021): definition of the default budget; disclosure at the first budget hearing.
POSITIVE Voters got a line-by-line account of the budget, its revenues and its tax effect before the comment window opened
With live questions barred, the presentation was the voters' main source. It was a full one: each building's change and its reason (special-education placements, programs moved to Bluff, two positions at the technical center), the removal of $1.5 million of one-time capital money, the unexpected $392,000 drop in adequacy aid, the use of $400,000 from the special-education expendable trust, the amount to be raised by taxes, and both tax rates, $24.53 for the proposed budget against $24.50 for the default and $23.93 the year before (0:15:43 to 0:37:30). The superintendent volunteered that most of the $584,000 in reductions was turnover savings rather than lost jobs. The session was held within RSA 40:13, III's window (January 30 to February 6, 2021). No statute prescribed this level of detail at an informational session.
Sources: RSA 40:13, III (2019 codification): first-session window; NHMA guidance (December 4, 2020) on 2020 N.H. Laws ch. 8 (HB 1129).
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 11276, "Claremont School Board: District Meeting Procedures of 2/1/21": Claremont Community TV, CLAREMONT SCHOOLS gallery. Every timestamp on this page links into this recording.
- Minutes: 2.1.21 Minutes from Virtual District Meeting (PDF), in the packet folder 8. CSB Special District Meeting 11.3.22; Drive createdTime 2022-11-03. Also in that folder: 2.9.22 District Meeting Minutes, which record approval of the February 4, 2021 minutes only.
- No agenda, warrant, voter mailing or budget handout for this session was located; neither district share holds a year folder older than 2022 (MAP.md, checked 9/26/26).
- Related pages: January 13, 2021 (budget hearing; HB 1129 adopted), January 27, 2021, February 4, 2021 (second session), November 3, 2022.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/11276 SchoolDistrictMeeting020121.mp4.CSV (156 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/11276 SchoolDistrictMeeting020121.mp4Input/Transcripts/11276 SchoolDistrictMeeting020121.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/11276 SchoolDistrictMeeting020121.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 139
Laws and rules cited on this page
- New Hampshire statutes, as in force on February 1, 2021. RSA 40:13, III, IV, IX(b) and XI(a) (2019 codification; last amended 2019, 192:2). RSA 40:4 (last amended 2019, 192:1). RSA 197:20 (1963, 120:5).
- Session law. 2020 N.H. Laws ch. 8 (HB 1129), approved July 10, 2020 (status page; chaptered text not read), as summarized in NHMA's guidance of December 4, 2020 (secondary source).