Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part or answering the roll. Names follow the project's dialogue file and roll-call readings; no minutes exist online to check spellings against, so unverified spellings are marked. Members are listed first.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Michael Petrin | SAU 6 Board Chair (Claremont member) | Presided. Noted the missing minutes, called for the nonpublic session and both roll calls, asked about the $14,000 office-salary increase and the office software line, checked that the remote member was not being missed, and introduced the superintendent's contract extension ("we've met some of it have presented a five year extension"). The transcript renders his roll answers as Petra and Pizza. |
| Frank Sprague | Member (Claremont; Claremont School Board chair) | Questioned why three salaries ran above budget, about $8,500 before benefits: "if we have, if we actually have a functional merit pool, I personally don't want to see people arbitrarily getting extra money." Moved adoption of the budget and moved the five-year contract extension. Roll reading Greg. Spread. |
| Steven Horsky | Member (Claremont) | Moved the agenda, the nonpublic session, the recess, the return to public session and adjournment; seconded the contract extension. Recalled the earlier board's intent for merit pay and proposed budgeting the pool at 2% or 2.5% instead of 3%; asked about the office-supplies line. |
| Heather Whitney | Member (Claremont) | Seconded the budget motion. Warned that a merit pool paid out in full every year would come to be treated as a cost-of-living raise. |
| Nicholas Stone | Member (Claremont) | Asked about the contracted-services line and about how merit pay had been handled when no written evaluation existed; seconded adjournment. |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Member (Claremont), remote | Answered the roll "Present. Virtually." and voted yes on both nonpublic roll calls. When the chair asked at 1:13:25 whether he was still on, he replied "No you guys are answering everything." |
| Joshua Lambert | Member (Claremont) | Called on both roll calls; his answers are merged into the clerk's reading in the transcript ("Joshua. Lambert. Yes."). No other attributed speech. |
| Marjorie Erickson | Member (Unity) | Answered yes on both roll calls; the transcript hears the name as Don't you? Ericson and Andrew. Erickson. No attributed speech; one unnamed voice in the dialogue file may be hers (unconfirmed). |
| Shannon (surname not spoken) | Member (Unity) | Answered yes on both roll calls, called only by first name. The project's roster lists a Unity member Shannon Popescu in this period; the recording does not confirm the surname. |
| Rocco Ruggeri | Member (Unity) | Answered yes on both nonpublic roll calls. The name is heard only as Or Jerry? and Rocco. Would you.; the identification rests on the roll order and the roster. |
| John Dempsey | Member (Unity) | Answered the attendance roll and voted yes on both nonpublic roll calls. |
| Gary Bader | Member (Unity); Absent | The clerk's reading records No. after his name on both roll calls (Gary. Baker the second time), read as absent. Spelling of the surname unverified. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Explained the next day's school closure in Claremont after a national social-media threat and "some targeted names" investigated with the Claremont Police; gave a COVID update and school highlights. On merit pay, said that in past years "Everyone received the same amount" and that a new evaluation process would come to the board for approval. |
| Richard Seaman | Assistant Superintendent for Finance, SAU 6 | Presented the revised budget after reprinting it during the recess: a total of about $1,795,945, up 1.34%, with the audit line cut from $25,000 to $10,000 and the merit pool held at 3% of salaries with no payout until an evaluation process is presented. Defended past above-budget salary adjustments as market-based. The dialogue file also gives him the call back to order after the recess (see method note). |
| Mary Woodman | Clerk and recording secretary | Took attendance and both roll-call votes. The chair reported she was still working on the previous meeting's minutes. |
| Citizens' comments | None | The chair opened citizens' comments at 0:09:02 and closed them with no one wishing to speak. |
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. The chair refers to an agenda "in front of us" and to lettered items A and B. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:01:47 | Call to order, pledge, attendance | Called to order by the chair; attendance taken by the clerk at 0:02:23. Eleven of twelve members present, one remotely. |
| 0:03:17 | Agenda | No amendments. Motion Horsky, second unidentified; approved by voice vote. |
| 0:03:43 | Previous meeting minutes | Not taken up: "We actually do not have previous meeting minutes tonight." |
| 0:03:55 | Superintendent's report | School closure for December 17, COVID trends, school activities. No questions. |
| 0:09:02 | Citizens' comments | None. |
| 0:09:18 | Nonpublic session | Motion Horsky "under RSA 9183, section two, subparagraph A" [RSA 91-A:3, II(a)]; roll-call vote, all present yes. Return to public session moved by Horsky at 0:10:45; roll call, all present yes. No decision was announced. |
| 0:11:56 | Item A: SAU 6 budget | The printed budget was an old version; five-minute recess moved by Horsky at 0:13:16 so a new version could be printed. Resumed at 0:46:39. Motion Sprague "We approve the budget. As presented." at 1:11:03, second Whitney; carried by voice vote at 1:13:32. |
| 1:13:54 | Item B: superintendent contract | Motion Sprague at 1:14:21 to extend the superintendent's contract by five years "Terms and conditions as may be agreed upon."; second Horsky; carried by voice vote at 1:15:06. |
| 1:15:13 | Future agenda items | Discussion of a scheduling conflict with the January meeting; no item added. |
| 1:15:48 | Adjournment | Motion Horsky, second Stone; voice vote at 1:15:59. |
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 |
|---|
| 0:01:47 | Call to order and attendance | "Good evening. I'd like to call the December 16th, 2021SE6 school board meeting to order." Lovett answered "Present. Virtually."; Bader recorded No. | MEDIUM |
| 0:03:17 | Agenda approved | No changes; Horsky moved "The agenda as presented." Voice vote. | MEDIUM |
| 0:03:43 | No minutes | Chair: "We actually do not have previous meeting minutes tonight. Mary. Still working on those for us. And get them to us soon." | MEDIUM |
| 0:04:00 | School closure on December 17 | The superintendent said school would be closed the next day. A message about "a national TikTok threat about school violence" had been planned, but after school "we had, some targeted names and things to investigate, which we work closely with the Claremont Police", and the district decided to play it safe while leads were followed up. | |
| 0:05:40 | COVID update and highlights | Lowest ratio of Claremont infections to county spread so far, which he credited in part to masking and vaccination; concern about Omicron; theater rehearsal of The Odd Couple, concerts, a middle school ribbon cutting. | |
| 0:09:09 | Nonpublic session | Horsky: "I'll make a motion under RSA 9183, section two, subparagraph A to go into nonpublic session." Chair: "It's a roll call vote." All present voted yes on the roll call beginning at 0:09:41. The chair then arranged a way to reach Lovett during the session. | POSITIVE OBS |
| 0:10:45 | Return to public session | Horsky moved to return; roll call at 0:11:23, all present yes. No decision from the nonpublic session was announced on the recording. | OBS |
| 0:11:56 | Budget: wrong version printed; recess | Seaman: the printed copy was "Some old version." and the budget "Is the budget reduced? Pretty significantly from what I presented last night, which is what you're looking at." He asked for time to print a new package; Horsky moved a five-minute recess at 0:13:16. The tape then runs about 33 minutes, mostly off-microphone conversation, before the chair's call back to order at 0:46:39. | |
| 0:47:01 | Revised SAU budget | Audit line cut from $25,000 to an annual rate of $10,000 because "we will be caught up on audit", after Sprague's question at the last meeting; superintendent's-office training raised from $10,000 to $15,000; actual salaries of new hires were lower than estimated. Total reduced from just over $1.8 million to about $1,795,945, "up by 1.34%", including a 3% rise in the state retirement contribution costing about $27,000. | POSITIVE |
| 0:50:09 | Line-item questions | Horsky: office supplies budgeted at $8,000 against almost $24,000 actual (Seaman: pandemic purchases). Stone: contracted services at $5,000 (Seaman: "I'm not sure I can give you a detailed answer on what that one is."). Petrin: a $14,000 office-salary increase is a replacement position hired "at a higher cost". | |
| 0:53:05 | Merit pool and above-budget salaries | Seaman: the merit pool is at 3% "with the specific direction and vote from the board that nothing would be paid out of it without the implementation and presentation of the evaluation process." Sprague totaled about $8,500 paid above budget in three cases and said "it looks arbitrary". Seaman answered that the increases followed market reviews after employees said their positions were underpaid: "it's not an arbitrary decision at all." Sprague: "Of information coming my way. I have to draw my own conclusions." | OBS |
| 0:57:28 | How past merit pay was decided | Stone asked whether merit pay had been paid with no evaluation in place. Seaman: "There hasn't been a written evaluation piece. That's correct." Tempesta: "we didn't even know we had a merit pool until we were reaping the budget" and "So so we made the judgments on it. Everyone received the same amount." | OBS |
| 1:00:47 | Size of the pool | Horsky recalled the earlier board's intent that the best performers get the bump and suggested budgeting 2% or 2.5%. Seaman described a 1-to-5 scale with 3 as average and said unspent pool money "just goes back into surplus and offsets future years." | |
| 1:08:42 | Merit versus cost of living | Whitney: if everyone gets nearly the full merit raise every year, "I would be like, that's the cost of living." Horsky confirmed with Seaman that merit is a one-time payment: "It does not compound." | |
| 1:11:03 | Budget adopted | Sprague moved to approve the budget as presented; Whitney seconded. After questions on shared software (general ledger and payroll allocated across the districts) and the merit line, and a check on the remote member, the chair called the vote: "All those in favor? Aye, aye. Opposed?" | MEDIUM |
| 1:13:54 | Superintendent contract extended five years | Chair: "it's time for an extension on the superintendent's contract." Sprague moved to extend "By five years." on terms "as may be agreed upon", explaining that "there will be some further negotiations as to some of the fine points of,". Second Horsky; voice vote at 1:15:06. No salary, term dates or other conditions were stated. | OBS MEDIUM |
| 1:15:26 | January meeting; adjournment | A conflict with a January retreat was mentioned; most members had emailed about cancelling that meeting. Horsky moved to adjourn, Stone seconded; voice vote at 1:15:59. | |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on December 16, 2021. Each flag cites the text 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 A member took part remotely, but the agenda, the budget, the five-year contract extension and adjournment were all decided by voice vote
Rob Lovett Jr. answered the roll "Present. Virtually." (0:03:07). The two nonpublic-session motions were decided by roll call, but every other vote was a voice vote: the agenda (0:03:35), the recess (0:13:19), the SAU budget ("All those in favor? Aye, aye. Opposed?", 1:13:32), the superintendent's contract extension (1:15:06) and adjournment (1:15:59). RSA 91-A:2, III(e), as in force in December 2021, provides that a member participating remotely "is deemed to be present at the meeting for purposes of voting. All votes taken during such a meeting shall be by roll call vote." On a voice vote the public cannot tell how the remote member voted, or whether he voted. Paragraph III(a) also requires that "Any reason that such attendance is not reasonably practical shall be stated in the minutes of the meeting"; no reason is given on the tape and no minutes are available to check.
Mitigation: a quorum was physically present, as III(b) requires; the chair made arrangements to reach the remote member during the nonpublic session and checked at 1:13:25 that he was not being missed; and no opposing voice is audible on any vote. The Governor's COVID-19 state of emergency, under which Emergency Order #12 had relaxed remote-meeting rules, expired on June 11, 2021, so the ordinary statute applied. This is graded MEDIUM because the rule is clear but the minutes, which might record each member's vote, cannot be checked.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, III(a), (b), (e) (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019, so this was the text in force in 2021): remote participation, quorum physically present, all votes by roll call; New Hampshire Public Radio, June 10, 2021 (reporting): state of emergency to expire at midnight Friday, June 11, 2021.
MEDIUM The minutes of the previous SAU 6 meeting were still not ready four weeks later, and the recording shows it
At 0:03:43 the chair said: "We actually do not have previous meeting minutes tonight. Mary. Still working on those for us." The previous SAU 6 meeting was November 18, 2021, twenty-eight days earlier. On that recording the clerk had already reported that the minutes of the October meeting were not done either, citing a broken ankle and a computer failure (see the November 18 page). RSA 91-A:2, II required that minutes "be promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting"; draft minutes satisfy that duty. For a November 18 meeting that window closed before the end of November.
Limb of the project's missing-records rule applied: the recording itself shows the statutory window missed, which takes this beyond an online-availability observation; it is graded MEDIUM rather than HIGH because the record mitigates it: the clerk gave a reason on November 18 and the chair said the minutes were coming. Whether drafts existed elsewhere in time cannot be tested from here.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification, in force in 2021): minutes open to inspection within 5 business days.
OBSERVATION A five-year superintendent contract extension was approved with its terms left to later negotiation, right after a nonpublic session whose outcome was not announced
The board went into nonpublic session under the compensation exemption, RSA 91-A:3, II(a), at 0:09:18 and returned without announcing any decision. At 1:13:54 the chair introduced the extension ("we've met some of it have presented a five year extension"), without saying who had met. Sprague moved "that we extend the superintendent's contract." "By five years." on "Terms and conditions as may be agreed upon." and explained at 1:14:39 that "there will be some further negotiations as to some of the fine points of,". The motion passed by voice vote with no salary, dates or conditions stated in public.
RSA 194-C:5, III gives the SAU board the power to fix the salaries of all SAU personnel. This page found no New Hampshire statute in force in 2021 that limits a superintendent contract's length or requires its terms to be read at the vote, so this is an observation. What a reader cannot tell from the public record is what was agreed, by whom the final terms were settled, and whether anything decided in the nonpublic session had to be disclosed: RSA 91-A:3, III required that "Minutes and decisions reached in nonpublic session shall be publicly disclosed within 72 hours of the meeting" unless sealed by a recorded two-thirds vote, and no sealing vote was taken on the tape. No nonpublic minutes are available online.
Sources: RSA 194-C:5, III (1996, 298:3; never amended): SAU board fixes salaries of all SAU personnel; RSA 91-A:3, II(a) and III (2019 codification; these passages read the same in the 2022 codification, so the 2021 amendments, 2021, 48:7 and 163:1 and 172:1, did not change them): nonpublic session for employee compensation; disclosure within 72 hours unless sealed.
OBSERVATION Past merit payments were made at a flat rate without the evaluation process the board had required, and three salaries were raised above budget; the recording does not show the board fixing either
Seaman told the board at 0:53:05 that the merit pool carried "specific direction and vote from the board that nothing would be paid out of it without the implementation and presentation of the evaluation process." Asked by Stone at 0:57:28 whether merit pay had been paid anyway, he answered "There hasn't been a written evaluation piece. That's correct." The superintendent said "we didn't even know we had a merit pool until we were reaping the budget" and "Everyone received the same amount." Separately, Sprague identified three salaries running about $8,500 above budget; Seaman explained at 0:54:56 that employees "rightfully came forward" and the administration benchmarked the positions against the market.
RSA 194-C:5, III provides that the SAU board "shall fix the salaries of all school administrative unit personnel". The recording does not say whether the board voted on the market adjustments or on the flat merit payments in the earlier years, and Sprague's comment at 0:57:03 ("Of information coming my way. I have to draw my own conclusions.") suggests members did not know. The earlier board vote and the payment decisions are not in any available record, so this is an observation. On the other side: the administration disclosed the history openly when asked, and the board has frozen payouts until an evaluation tool is presented.
Sources: RSA 194-C:5, III (1996, 298:3; never amended): the SAU board fixes the salaries of all SAU personnel.
OBSERVATION No agenda, budget document or minutes for this meeting are posted online, so the adopted SAU budget cannot be read
MAP.md records that neither district Drive share holds anything before July 2022 (checked 9/26/26). That is a limit of what the district posts online, not by itself evidence that records were never made: the recording shows a written agenda, a printed budget in two versions ("It's titled with a V two.", 0:45:16) and a clerk keeping minutes. But the budget the board adopted, about $1,795,945, exists for the public only as the figures read aloud, and the recording shows members reading line numbers from a document the viewer cannot see. The limb of the project's missing-records rule applied is the online-availability observation.
Sources: Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 158; RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification).
POSITIVE The SAU budget was reviewed line by line over two public meetings and corrected in response to a member's question, although the statute requires no hearing
The budget was first presented on November 18 and adopted on December 16, before the January 1 date in RSA 194-C:9, I ("At a meeting held before January 1, the school administrative unit board shall adopt a budget"). That section requires no public hearing on an SAU budget. Between the two meetings the audit line was cut from $25,000 to $10,000 after Sprague questioned it (0:47:20), and members questioned individual lines on the record at both meetings. The nonpublic session was also moved in the form RSA 91-A:3, I(b) requires, naming the exemption (heard as RSA 9183, section two, subparagraph A) and taking roll-call votes both ways, which the November 18 meeting did not do.
Sources: RSA 194-C:9, I (source note 2003, 279:1; the text in force in 2021): SAU budget adopted before January 1, no hearing required; RSA 91-A:3, I(b) (2019 codification): motion states the specific exemption; roll-call vote.
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 12088, "SAU 6 Board Meeting of 12/16/21": 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, budget document, contract or minutes for this meeting were located.
- Related page: SAU 6 Board, November 18, 2021 (first presentation of this budget).
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/12088 SAU6121621.mp4.CSV (387 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/12088 SAU6121621.mp4Input/Transcripts/12088 SAU6121621.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/12088 SAU6121621.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 158
Laws and rules cited on this page
- New Hampshire statutes, as in force on December 16, 2021. RSA 91-A:2, II and III(a), (b), (e) (minutes; remote participation; 2019 codification, unchanged through 2022). RSA 91-A:3, I(b), II(a), III (nonpublic sessions; 2019 codification; the same passages read identically in the 2022 codification). RSA 194-C:5, III (SAU board fixes SAU salaries). RSA 194-C:9, I (SAU budget before January 1).
- Emergency orders. The COVID-19 state of emergency expired June 11, 2021 (NHPR reporting); cited only to show the emergency remote-meeting order no longer applied.