Claremont School Board Finance Committee — November 30, 2023

Participants

Everyone in the record. With no minutes or attendance list, names come from the chair’s opening round (0:00:04–0:00:26) and from how people are addressed on the recording, checked against the board’s November 15 and December 6 minutes. There was no public comment period and no member of the public spoke.
Name	Role	Participation
Frank Sprague	Committee chair; board vice chair	Presided; explained the process to viewers; asked about impact bargaining on the Stevens schedule (0:07:17) and asked for staffing detail (1:10:06); raised the one-year extraordinary need grant (1:14:08). The dialogue file notes that the diarizer merges his voice with the superintendent’s in parts of this file.
Heather Whitney	Board chair; committee member	Asked whether the November 2023 school-funding rulings would reach this budget, what a social worker adds, whether behavioral specialists have job descriptions, and what a full curriculum cycle will cost each year (1:20:00). Stated the elementary total: “0.6 6%” (1:11:31).
Candace Crawford	Committee member	The most frequent questioner (203 rows): health-plan costs, a 2 percent salary line, paraprofessional certification, behavioral specialists, field trips. A board-named paraprofessional negotiator since November 15 (“since I’m on the parent [para] negotiating”, 0:52:00).
Michael Tempesta	Superintendent, SAU 6	Opened with the four FY2025 drivers; “I didn’t estimate the budget impact” of the ESSER sunset (0:04:15); explained two prior-year budgeting errors; declined to quantify the paraprofessional change, citing active negotiation (1:09:00). The SAU 6 board dismissed him on January 11–12, 2024.
Mary Henry	Business Administrator, SAU 6	Answered on health costs, substitutes and salary variances; confirmed “There are no behavioral support specialists or the Haverhill [behavioral] support in any of these budget lines” (1:08:01); on staffing detail, “I have no problem with that. I just ran out of time” (1:10:25).
Mike Koski	Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6	Spoke only on curriculum, in the last ten minutes: the ELA suite, consumable workbooks, one subject a year, “$250,000 a year each year for curriculum” (1:22:27). Named present in the opening round; never addressed by name, so the attribution is medium confidence.
Melissa Lewis	Principal, Disnard Elementary	Presented Disnard first and answered for the level while Maple was disconnected: a social worker, one more paraprofessional against five vacancies, supplies, software, field trips. Rendered Alyssa in the opening round and Disney for Disnard.
Christine Baker	Principal, Bluff Elementary (remote)	176 students against a budget built for 190; furniture; a social worker in place of the interventionist she asked for; 18 paraprofessionals needed, seven one-to-one; no field-trip line.
Mark Blount	Principal, Maple Avenue Elementary (remote)	Named online at 0:00:26 but inaudible until 0:55:47. Reported 22 paraprofessionals, the K–2 district-wide program, one Title I interventionist where there had been three, and asked for a locally funded interventionist. The dialogue file and the chair say “Blunt”; the district’s later records spell it Blount.
Ben Nester	Director of Special Education, SAU 6	Named present in the opening round; no row is attributed to him. Whether he was silent or merged into another cluster cannot be told.
Unidentified	Unattributed voices	12 rows, mostly short interjections, some probably the Maple speakerphone. Nothing on this page rests on one.
Others named, not present	Various	Chris Pratt, Stevens principal (“Mr. Pratt will, next week”, 0:06:42); Steve Holt, maintenance director (“Mr. Holtz”, 0:30:58); Jeff Small, technology director (“Jeff Smalley”, 0:47:10).

Agenda

No agenda was posted. This item list is reconstructed from the chair’s transitions on the recording and is not an official document. There were no motions or votes, so the third column records what was done, not what was decided.
Taken up	Item (reconstructed)	What happened
0:00:04	Opening; who is in the room	“My name is Frank Sprague. I’m the chair of this committee and vice chair of the Claremont Board.” No call to order or roll call.
0:00:56	The committee’s charge, to viewers	“it’s sort of like walking along the edge of a razor blade” (0:01:20).
0:01:46	Superintendent’s overview: four drivers	Paraprofessional contract, ESSER sunset, early childhood into the elementary schools, schedule alignment. Written rationales offered, “but we can post these as well” (0:03:19); none located.
0:07:17	Questions: impact bargaining; the funding rulings	No side letter with the union; the committee agreed to plan without new state money.
0:11:09	General questions: teacher contract, health plans	Second contract year, “3.75%”; family plan “upwards around 37,000” by recollection (0:12:31).
0:14:07	Disnard Elementary (Melissa Lewis)	Principal’s walk-through of changes, then questions.
0:36:29	Maple Avenue, attempted	Connection failed; “Let’s switch to Christine” (0:37:51).
0:38:08	Bluff Elementary (Christine Baker)	Taken out of order.
0:48:07	Maple Avenue, resumed	Discussed without the principal until 0:55:47; then his account.
1:08:36	Behavioral specialists; staffing detail	Figure withheld; staffing schedule requested, no date fixed.
1:11:31	Elementary total	0.66 percent, excluding three contracts under negotiation.
1:14:08	Curriculum and the extraordinary need grant	A standing $250,000-a-year curriculum estimate; fund balance floated.
1:23:15	Close	“I’m going to let these poor people go.” Next session set for 9:00 the next morning by assent. No adjournment motion.

Discussion timeline

Chronological topics. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction. Because no agenda or minutes exist, this table is the only itemized public account of the meeting.
Time	Topic	What was said	Flags
0:00:04	Who is in the room	“Heather Whitney is on the committee. She’s the chair of the Claremont board.” At 0:00:26: “And Candace Crawford is also on the committee. Claremont board member and Mike Tempesta, superintendent. Mike Kosky [Koski], assistant superintendent. Mary Henry, business administrator. And Ben Nester, who is our special ed director.” Principals: “Alyssa [Melissa]”, “Christine baker” online, “And Mark is online.”	HIGH
0:00:56	The charge	“our charge is to make sure that we we have the things that we we need to provide education to our kids.” At 0:01:20: “we need to make sure that whatever we bring forward is sustainable by the taxpayers. So it’s sort of like walking along the edge of a razor blade.”	POSITIVE
0:02:17	Drivers: paraprofessional contract; ESSER sunset	“reopening the paraprofessional contract to prioritize a fair and competitive contract, sunsetting the additional staff that we brought in a few years ago”. At 0:04:15: “I didn’t estimate the budget impact”. At 0:04:47: “All of those things expire in September of 24 next September”. At 0:03:39: the goal is “to clean up the lows [LOAs] and the other types of things and really have just one para contract.”	MEDIUM
0:05:13	Early childhood into the elementary schools	“it’s more beneficial to operate those programs directly embedded in the elementary schools.” At 0:05:41: “And it’s tough to be a standalone up here.”
0:06:11	Portable classrooms on ESSER money	“what I don’t see in this that I have is the allocation of funds to that to get portable classrooms. At Disney [Disnard] and at, at bluff for that. But we do have that funded in the, in the Esser [ESSER] monies.”	MEDIUM
0:07:17	Impact bargaining on the Stevens schedule	Sprague: “So has any provision been made for impact bargaining?” Tempesta at 0:07:35: “we know that we would have to to bargain.” Sprague at 0:08:08: “There’s no there’s no side letter.” Tempesta: “We want to we want to present it as a viable option financially to the board and to everyone first.”	OBSERVATION
0:08:29	The school-funding rulings	Whitney: “Do we have any sense of whether or not the recent court decisions are going to positively impact our budget?” “The canal and the rand [ConVal and Rand]?” At 0:09:30: “I thought the ruling was, is that they were going to increase the per pupil spending was going to be required to over 7000, where we’re at 4100.” Crawford at 0:10:54: “I think it’s prudent to plan not to get the money.”	POSITIVE
0:11:09	Teacher contract and health plans	Whitney: “Roughly 500,000 more.” Sprague: “3.75%.” Henry at 0:12:31: “I think family plan is upwards around 37,000, 33,000 depending.” Employee share about 5 percent.
0:14:07	The line-by-line begins	Sprague: “this is going to be awfully boring, I think for people watching”. Lewis offers to go through her changes; “That’d be great, Melissa. Thank you.”
0:14:58	Disnard: social worker, supplies, workbooks	“it was on my Christmas wish list was for a school social worker.” At 0:15:10: “I increased instructional supplies by $3,000. A huge driver here is the cost of copy paper.” At 0:15:31: “the state of New Hampshire, as you know, now requires the teaching of cursive handwriting.” At 0:16:41: “So that’s why you see going from nothing to going to 150.”	OBSERVATION
0:17:20	Disnard paraprofessionals	“I currently have 12. I’m in need of about, Well, I have five openings right now.” Four students arrived needing one-to-ones. At 0:18:35: “12, 13 isn’t going to get us. It’ll get us a little closer, but it will not be enough.” At 0:18:58: “15 would give us?” One left “for a higher paying position pair [para] position in a nearby district” (0:20:13).	OBSERVATION
0:17:45	Paraprofessional certification	Crawford: “Are all of those pairs [paras]? Certified.” Lewis at 0:17:51: “To work in a Claremont elementary school, they have to have two certification.” At 0:18:01: “They can’t be employed in one of our elementary schools without that.”	POSITIVE
0:25:04	A $15,000 secretary line: a prior-year error	Lewis: “It is not increased hours again.” Sprague at 0:25:39: “It was. It was incorrectly entered last year.” Crawford at 0:25:50: “$67,000 budgeted last year was incorrect?” Whitney: Yes.	MEDIUM
0:27:41	Substitutes, and an ESSER-funded building sub	About $105 a day. Long-term rate: “That I cannot answer, Frank.” (0:28:20). Lewis at 0:28:25: a building-based substitute “for the last two years under Esser [ESSER] funds”; “She’s used daily.”	MEDIUM
0:29:15	A 2 percent salary line	Crawford at 0:29:39: “I want to hear that from Mary.” Henry at 0:29:54: a change in staff, “unless we do a decrease in staff which we have not done.”
0:30:53	Maintenance increases	$16,000 at Disnard; “That comes from Mr. Holtz [Holt].” Nobody present could explain it.
0:31:04	What a social worker adds	Whitney puts the post at “almost $100,000”. Lewis at 0:31:54: “We need more. It’s not enough.” Sprague at 0:35:48: “Warm body won’t do it.”	POSITIVE
0:35:51	A second prior-year error funds the social worker	Crawford: “under sped salaries there’s a decrease of about 71,000.” Tempesta at 0:36:06: “No. We think it was a budgeting error from last year.” Crawford: “Great. That pays for the social worker.”	MEDIUM
0:36:29	A telephone that does not work	“You’re on mute.” “Can you hear me now?” “Did not work.” At 0:37:51: “Let’s switch to Christine.”	OBSERVATION
0:38:08	Bluff: workbooks, furniture	Teachers want tables and desks again; Sprague at 0:38:55: “So these are all the things we bought during Covid money.”
0:39:14	An interventionist asked for, a social worker given	Baker at 0:39:38: “So not a case manager, but someone to help out with interventions. So it looks like that came by way of a social worker.”
0:40:56	Bluff enrollment: vacancies move children	“Currently? 176.” Two posts “still in this year’s budget, but we just didn’t hire for, we had to send several of our second graders to Disney [Disnard] to take the overflow.” Budget built for 190 (0:41:28).	OBSERVATION
0:42:25	Field trips	Baker: “I did not budget for field trips. We we have a PTO that has been very supportive”. Disnard budgeted $2,000.	OBSERVATION
0:42:50	A third prior-year error, at Bluff	Tempesta: “we believe it’s a was a budgeting error.” Henry at 0:42:58: “And I talked to him again last night to make sure.”	MEDIUM
0:43:42	Bluff paraprofessionals	“I know for next year, my needs were 18”; at 0:46:14: “So seven of that, 18 are one on ones for next year.” Whitney at 0:45:24: “They all have to be. If it’s a title of one [Title I] school, they have to.”	POSITIVE
0:48:07	Maple discussed without its principal	Sprague: “So I’m going to ask you a question. See if somebody else can answer.” Henry at 0:48:46: the reduction “comes from the behavioral support specialists, and things of that nature that were in there.”	OBSERVATION
0:49:52	What behavioral specialists are	Lewis: “We added one to each building.” At 0:50:28: “a certification in some ABA training”. At 0:51:25: “But they are those on lows [LOAs].” Tempesta at 0:52:18: “that’s why we’re renegotiating the contract. So that we can capture the major [behavior] specialist positions in the contract.”	OBSERVATION
0:52:58	Maple’s $161,000 reduction	Crawford: “Have we figured out why salaries have gone down 161?” Henry at 0:54:51: “just in the salaries from changing of staff”. Lewis at 0:53:21: Maple too could not fill all its positions.
0:55:47	Maple joins	“Are you talking to me?” 22 paraprofessionals (0:56:08); the “K-2 district wide program” (0:56:57); Crawford at 0:57:32: “You’ve got salaries for Ferris [paras] at 542,000.”
0:59:39	A missing kindergarten teacher; interventionists cut	“There’s a there’s also a list of two kindergarten teachers. Should probably be a third one in there.” At 1:04:48: “Last year starting out with three I was able to do the entire building. And then that was reduced to two.” At 1:01:32, a voice the file labels Sprague: “There’s been an enrollment decline at at me to [Maple] down to 267 the first time in ten years under 300.”	OBSERVATION
1:06:07	A locally funded interventionist, not in the budget	Tempesta: “Mark’s asking for a locally funded interventionist.” Henry at 1:07:02: “Not in there. No.”
1:07:05	Last year’s book: three behavioral support people	Sprague: “I’ve got my budget materials from last year.” Henry at 1:08:01: “There are no behavioral support specialists or the Haverhill [behavioral] support in any of these budget lines”.	OBSERVATION
1:08:36	The question put plainly	Crawford: “In this proposed budget, there are no behavioral specialists for the elementaries. Is that true?” Henry: “Yeah. That’s true. Correct.” Tempesta at 1:09:00: “I can only say so much about this because we’re in an active negotiation.” Asked whether money was built into the para lines, at 1:09:45: “That’s what I can’t talk about.” At 1:09:47: “But yes yes yes.” At 1:09:52: “So there’s 62 powers [paras].”	OBSERVATION
1:10:06	The staffing detail the committee needs	Sprague: “The staffing is really critical to look at it from, for me to even begin this process.” Henry at 1:10:52: “does it give you each individual’s benefits. Yep. See and I can’t do that legally.” Sprague at 1:11:22: “That’s what we did in this one in blinded the names of the people.”	OBSERVATION
1:11:31	The elementary total	Whitney: “this is an overall budget increase of 0.6 6% for the three elementary schools.” At 1:11:42: “we have no idea what the terror [para] negotiation increase how that will be reflected in the budget.” Tempesta: “that would be a warrant article.” Henry at 1:12:31: maintenance and secretaries carry last year’s wages.	OBSERVATION
1:14:08	A one-year grant paying for curriculum	Sprague: “So we we got the extraordinary needs grant last year. Is that was that one year or two years? One year, just last year.” At 1:14:32: “I was under the impression that the, the curriculum, things that were in the elementary budget this year were going to be paid for with that.”	OBSERVATION
1:14:54	The curriculum cycle	Koski: “We purchased three programs that formed kind of a suite”; “The workbooks are consumable, right. Each year.” At 1:17:44: “it was in the mid 200,000 to 300,000 when you put all pieces together.” At 1:19:35: “No one per year going forward.”	OBSERVATION
1:15:34	Portables: not yet out to bid	ESSER III ends “Not until September” 2024. Tempesta at 1:16:28: “We have plans from centipede. We have plans from Fall Mountain.” At 1:16:43: “We still have to. We still have to go out to bid. We have to start everything on that.”	MEDIUM
1:20:00	Whitney’s five-year question	“So I’m looking for a global number that we’re going to have to build into the budget when we max out”. At 1:21:12: “So if I’m building a budget for today, I have to be thinking five years down.” Koski at 1:22:27: “$250,000 a year each year for curriculum.”	POSITIVE OBSERVATION
1:20:28	Fund balance as the source	Tempesta: “There’d be a good use of, allocates some money from a fund balance into that.” At 1:22:49: “Remember that if we have a, say, a $400,000 fund balance”. Koski: “Be happy to be the beneficiary of that.”	OBSERVATION
1:23:10	Not yet seen, and close	Crawford: “We haven’t seen it yet because we haven’t seen the district wide portion yet.” Sprague at 1:23:15: “I’m going to let these poor people go.”	HIGH

Items flagged for review

These flags are a reviewer’s aid. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on, as it stood on November 30, 2023; an Observation rests on no confirmed rule. With no agenda or minutes, every flag rests on the recording.

HIGH A public body met for 84 minutes on the district budget and left no notice, agenda, packet or minutes anywhere the public can find them

“Public body” includes “any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto” (RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d), statute text). All three members were present and deliberated on the operating budget, which is a meeting under RSA 91-A:2, I. RSA 91-A:2, II requires 24 hours’ notice and minutes open to inspection within five business days. MAP.md records a search of the 2023 Meeting Documents archive, both candidate year folders of the Meeting Minutes share, the next board packet and keyword searches (verified 2026-08-28), with nothing found. The district’s Claremont Finance Sub Committee folder (created October 27, 2022) returned no files to the earlier build’s check (2026-08-29) or to a Drive query on 2026-09-25; the project knows that query can under-report. This is the unmitigated limb of the project’s rule: no one on the recording says minutes are being kept or will follow. The December 6 board minutes report only “Sessions have been recorded on CCTV”, which points to a broadcast, not a record. Mitigation: no decision was taken; the session was deliberately televised; and absence from a share is not proof that no minutes were ever written. The board had a clerk from November 15, and no one was assigned to minute this.

Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, I and II (2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023); approved board minutes, December 6, 2023.

MEDIUM The ESSER sunset was not costed, and three portable classrooms to be bought with ESSER money had not gone out to bid ten months before the obligation deadline

The superintendent: “I didn’t estimate the budget impact” (0:04:15), with the funded posts to “expire in September of 24” (0:04:47). ARP ESSER funds had to be obligated by September 30, 2024 (U.S. Department of Education). The portables are “funded in the, in the Esser [ESSER] monies” but not in the book the committee was reading (0:06:11), and “We still have to go out to bid. We have to start everything on that” (1:16:43). Federal procurement standards (2 CFR 200.318 to 200.327: competition, documented cost analysis, records) apply to that purchase. The board’s own November 15 minutes record that the district “Didn’t get to use about 300,000 of the ESSER II”. Mitigation: a sunset list exists, some posts are proposed for local funding, and vendor plans were said to be in hand. Nothing here is a violation; it is an uncosted cliff and an unstarted procurement, stated by the officers responsible.

Sources: U.S. Department of Education, ARP ESSER obligation and liquidation deadlines; 2 CFR 200.318 (2023 edition), with 200.319–200.327; approved board minutes, November 15, 2023.

MEDIUM Three errors in the current adopted budget surfaced in one sitting, found by conversation rather than reconciliation

Disnard’s secretary line “was incorrectly entered last year” (0:25:39); Disnard’s special-education salaries fell about $71,000 because of “a budgeting error from last year” (0:36:06), which Crawford immediately used to fund the new social worker; and Bluff’s special-education salaries were “a was a budgeting error” (0:42:50). These lines were appropriated by the voters in March 2023. An entry error found and corrected breaks no statute; RSA 32:10 governs moving money between appropriations during the year. The pattern is a control weakness, and a correction in one line becoming the funding for a new position in another deserves a reconciliation on paper. The board’s December 6 minutes note “Discussion of anomalies that occurred last year.” Mitigation: each error was acknowledged at once, one had been rechecked the night before (0:42:58), and all released money rather than requiring more.

Sources: RSA 32:10 (2017, 127:4); approved board minutes, December 6, 2023.

OBSERVATION A recurring $250,000-a-year curriculum cost was identified, and every source floated for it was one-time money

Koski put the standing cost at “$250,000 a year each year for curriculum” (1:22:27); workbooks are consumable every year (1:14:54); grades 6–12 have “a curricula” but no program. The sources floated: a state extraordinary need grant the chair described as “One year, just last year” that he believed was paying for this year’s curriculum (1:14:08–1:14:32); ESSER, ending in 2024; and fund balance (“say, a $400,000 fund balance”, 1:22:49). Using retained year-end funds is lawful: RSA 198:4-b, II lets a district that has voted to do so retain up to 5 percent of its net assessment, and requires a public hearing before spending it. The observation is about sustainability, not legality: a known recurring cost was matched only with non-recurring money, and nobody said so. The board chair drove the question in the right direction (flag 11).

Sources: RSA 198:4-b, I and II (2020, 38:25); RSA 198:40-f (extraordinary need grants; 2023 codification).

OBSERVATION Every elementary behavioral specialist is out of the budget, and the sum placed in the paraprofessional lines to absorb them was not disclosed

“There are no behavioral support specialists or the Haverhill [behavioral] support in any of these budget lines” (1:08:01). The intent is to move staff now on letters of agreement into the paraprofessional contract (1:09:00). Asked whether money had been built into the para lines, the superintendent said “That’s what I can’t talk about” and then “But yes yes yes” (1:09:45–1:09:47). The elementary total of 0.66 percent (1:11:31) therefore rests on an undisclosed figure. Strategy for collective bargaining is excluded from the definition of a meeting (RSA 91-A:2, I(a)), so reticence about a bargaining position has a basis; two of the three members were the board’s own negotiators. The amounts must be disclosed or discussed at the budget hearing: RSA 32:5 requires “All purposes and amounts of appropriations” to be disclosed or discussed “at the final hearing” (statute text), held January 3, 2024.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I(a); RSA 32:5, II (2023 codification).

OBSERVATION A new state instructional mandate reaches the budget as a workbook line

Lewis: “the state of New Hampshire, as you know, now requires the teaching of cursive handwriting” (0:15:31). She is right. RSA 189:11-c requires districts to “Provide instruction in cursive writing by the end of fifth grade as a component of English language arts” (statute text), mandatory since 2023, 17:1, effective July 3, 2023. No dollar figure for the cursive materials was stated. The item shows where an unfunded mandate lands.

Sources: RSA 189:11-c (2015, 41:1; 2023, 17:1, eff. July 3, 2023; read 2026-09-25).

OBSERVATION A Stevens schedule change is being costed before any agreement with the union on its impact

The chair asked about impact bargaining and confirmed there is no side letter (0:07:17–0:08:14); the superintendent said the district knows it must bargain and wants to present the option financially first. RSA 273-A:3 obliges the parties to bargain in good faith, and a refusal to do so is an unfair labor practice under RSA 273-A:5, I(e). Nothing shows a refusal; costing first and bargaining next is a lawful order. The budget carries a contingency the document does not show.

Sources: RSA 273-A:3; RSA 273-A:5, I(e).

OBSERVATION The committee reviewed budgets without the staffing schedule it said it needed, and the privacy line was drawn around salaries as well as benefits

Sprague called the staffing detail “really critical” (1:10:06); Henry had run out of time, and no date was set. Henry said individual benefits could not lawfully be shown (1:10:52). New Hampshire has treated teacher salaries as public since Mans v. Lebanon School Board, 112 N.H. 160 (1972): “disclosure of salaries of schoolteachers is not a disclosure of those intimate details which ‘would constitute invasion of privacy’” (opinion text). Individual benefit elections sit closer to the exemption in RSA 91-A:5, IV, which permits withholding but does not require it. The agreed approach, positions with names blinded (1:11:22), works. Separately, Disnard budgets field trips and Bluff relies on its PTO (0:42:25); neither is improper, and the difference went unremarked.

Sources: Mans v. Lebanon School Bd., 112 N.H. 160 (1972) (read 2026-09-25); RSA 91-A:5, IV.

OBSERVATION Maple’s budget was discussed for about eight minutes while its principal could not hear, with no minute to separate his account from others’

From 0:48:07 the salary reduction, the behavioral specialists and the para line were answered for Maple by others; an unattributed voice guessed “I think the fifth grade was large” (0:49:17). The principal became audible at 0:55:47. RSA 91-A:2, III governs remote participation by members; a presenting principal is not a member, so no rule is engaged. The point is evidentiary.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, III; flag 1.

OBSERVATION Vacancies are reshaping what the elementary schools deliver while the budget carries the full establishment

Disnard: 12 paraprofessionals, five openings, and a request for one more against a stated need of 15 (0:17:20–0:18:58). Bluff: two unfilled teaching posts sent second-graders to Disnard; 176 enrolled against a budget for 190 (0:40:56–0:41:28). Maple: Title I interventionists down from three to one (1:04:48). All of this was volunteered by the principals. Free appropriate public education must be available to “all children residing in the State between the ages of 3 and 21, inclusive” (34 CFR 300.101, regulation text), and staffing shortages are no exception; but the record shows no undelivered IEP service, and this page identifies none.

Sources: 34 CFR 300.101.

POSITIVE A working budget session held on live television, explained to viewers, with the board chair asking a five-year question

Nothing required a subcommittee to broadcast a line-by-line review. The chair opened by explaining the committee’s charge to viewers (0:00:56–0:01:20) and apologized for the tedium without skipping it; technical terms were explained on camera (McKinney-Vento, 0:34:07; interventionists, 1:03:41). Whitney refused to take curriculum a year at a time: “I have to be thinking five years down” (1:21:12), pressing until a recurring figure was stated. Sprague insisted on qualifications for the social-worker posts, and Crawford asked to hear an answer from the officer responsible (0:29:39).

Sources: the recording at the timestamps above.

POSITIVE Members stated the ten-day-old school-funding ruling accurately, and planned on not receiving the money

On November 20, 2023 the Rockingham County Superior Court (Judge David Ruoff) ruled in the ConVal and Rand cases that the State should send no less than $7,356.01 per pupil (New Hampshire Bulletin, reporting). Whitney: “over 7000, where we’re at 4100” (0:09:30). The $4,100 is the base adequacy amount in RSA 198:40-a, II, in force from July 1, 2023. Crawford noted the State’s two-year budget and concluded “I think it’s prudent to plan not to get the money” (0:10:54). The FY2025 base figure later given to the district’s deliberative session was $4,182, the statutory 2 percent adjustment of $4,100, so the assumption held.

Sources: RSA 198:40-a, II (2023, 79:150, eff. July 1, 2023); RSA 198:40-d (2 percent annual adjustment); New Hampshire Bulletin, November 20, 2023 (reporting).

POSITIVE Elementary paraprofessionals are held to Paraeducator II, and the committee checked

Crawford asked twice; Lewis: “They can’t be employed in one of our elementary schools without that” (0:18:01). Whitney gave the federal reason (0:45:24): state plans must assure “professional standards for paraprofessionals working in a program supported with funds under this part, including qualifications that were in place on the day before December 10, 2015” (20 U.S.C. §6311(g)(2)(M), statute text). The district holds that floor while reporting pay-driven vacancies.

Sources: 20 U.S.C. §6311(g)(2)(M) (read 2026-09-25).

Appendix — source files

Official and public sources

Cablecast: Claremont School Board Finance Committee - 11/30/23 (show 15443; 1:24:07)
No notice, agenda, packet or minutes located. Searched per MAP.md section 31 (verified 2026-08-28): the 2023 Meeting Documents archive, both candidate year folders of the Meeting Minutes share, the next board packet, and keyword searches.
Claremont Finance Sub Committee folder (district-owned, created 2022-10-27): no files returned, 2026-08-29 and 2026-09-25.
20. Approved CSB minutes 12.6.23.pdf: the Finance Sub-Committee report (“Sessions have been recorded on CCTV”; “Discussion of anomalies that occurred last year”).
19. Approved CSB Meeting Minutes 11.15.23 (1).pdf: clerk appointed; Crawford and Sprague named paraprofessional negotiators; the ESSER II shortfall.
Adjacent pages: School Board, November 15, 2023; Finance Committee, December 1, 2023; School Board, December 6, 2023.

Project files

Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.

Dialogue/15443 SchoolBoardFinance113023.mp4.CSV (818 rows)
Input/Videos/15443 SchoolBoardFinance113023.mp4
Input/Transcripts/15443 SchoolBoardFinance113023.mp4.json
Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 31

Laws and rules cited on this page

Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, I, I(a), II, III; RSA 91-A:5, IV
Budget and school finance: RSA 32:5, II; RSA 32:10; RSA 198:4-b; RSA 198:40-f; RSA 198:40-a, II; RSA 198:40-d
Instruction and labor: RSA 189:11-c; RSA 273-A:3; RSA 273-A:5, I(e)
Case law: Mans v. Lebanon School Bd., 112 N.H. 160 (1972)
Federal: 20 U.S.C. §6311(g)(2)(M); 34 CFR 300.101; 2 CFR 200.318–200.327 (2023 edition); ARP ESSER deadlines (U.S. Department of Education)