Claremont School Board Finance Committee — December 18, 2023

Participants

Everyone in the record. With no agenda, attendance list or minutes, names rest on direct address and self-description on the recording, checked against the rosters printed in the district’s approved board minutes of 6 and 20 December 2023. No member of the public spoke; no comment period was offered. Row counts are from the dialogue file (1,466 rows).
Name	Role	Participation
Candace Crawford	Board member; Finance Committee member	374 rows, the most of anyone. Opened by saying she could not present the budget to the board on Wednesday (0:01:08), read a list of unanswered questions (0:04:13–0:08:12), and drove the middle-school staffing, counsellor, field-trip, para and preschool questions. Addressed as “Candace” by Henry and “Candy” by Sprague (2:03:33).
Frank Sprague	Finance Committee chair; board vice chair	293 rows. Presided by announcement rather than by agenda. Read the 13 December ESSER “sunset” handout into the record (0:08:35), pressed the $688,426.17 line to the answer that it reconciles two columns (2:10:32), and closed with “Well I think we need to we need to caucus, I guess” (2:24:03). Describes himself here as having “brought the model to Stevens with the discipline monitor” as principal (0:55:19); this page does not reconcile that with his other accounts of his career elsewhere in the corpus.
Heather Whitney	Board chair; Finance Committee member	277 rows. Floated the default budget (0:01:37), proposed a priorities-first method (1:43:25), read the counsellor ratio into the record (1:53:35), and asked about a forensic audit (2:11:35). Last position on tape: “I can find 1.4 right now” (2:23:51).
Mary Henry	Business Administrator, SAU 6	251 rows. Arrived about sixteen minutes late distributing sheets; the district-wide page was missing “because I’m not done with it” (0:18:06). Supplied the assessment base, the per-million factor, the $1.19 rate estimate and the “1.4 million or 9.15%” local raise; explained the $688,426.17 line; corrected herself unprompted (0:59:03); declined a forensic audit (2:11:39).
Michael Tempesta	Superintendent, SAU 6	119 rows. Arrived about fourteen minutes late: “We have a new schedule and that’s why we’re a little late” (0:14:14). Presented the revised middle-school structure, introduced two CMS staff (0:27:43), reported meeting the teachers’ association (0:33:35), and accounted for his $100,000 schedule estimate: “All these were estimates” (1:30:33).
Frank Romeo	Principal, Claremont Middle School	81 rows, 0:34:22 to about 1:07. Explained the seven-period model and the four-position reduction; conceded “They’re not in this budget currently. I would like them to be” (0:57:35) and, on isolated cost data, “Do not have that information” (1:04:03).
“Miss Foster”	Claremont Middle School staff; author of the proposed master schedule (first name not spoken)	36 rows. Introduced by Tempesta as one of two CMS staff present, “a counselor and a schedule extraordinaire who put this together” (0:27:43). Explained the team structure and student-centre rotation (0:44:24); “I think this is my 13th year in the district” (0:54:44).
“Miss Steel”	Claremont Middle School staff (present, not identified as speaking)	Named by Tempesta as in the room at 0:27:43; no row is attributed to her. The project roster carries a Courtney Steele at CMS, but the recording gives only the surname, and this page supplies no first name.
Unidentified	Unattributed rows	35 rows, nearly all one- or two-word acknowledgements. Nothing on this page rests on them.

Named but not present: Ben Nester, Director of Special Education, cited four times as the only person who could explain a figure (1:21:01, 1:39:53, 2:14:27, 2:16:13); Chris Pratt, Stevens High School principal, source of the block-to-traditional estimate (1:30:14); Noelle Kronberg, the board clerk, neither present nor mentioned. Assistant Superintendent Mike Koski is not placed in the room: Whitney’s “Mike and I have a meeting tonight in Goshen” (1:34:26) cannot be assigned between him and Michael Tempesta.

Agenda

No agenda was posted and the Cablecast record’s agenda field is empty. The item list is reconstructed from the chair’s transitions and is not an official document. No motion, second, vote, roll call or adjournment occurs, so the third column records what the committee did, not what it decided.
Taken up	Item (reconstructed)	What was said and the disposition
0:00:13	1. Opening	No call to order or roll call. Sprague names the date, the body and the purpose, including “have a caucus.” No other board member sent questions.
0:01:08	2. Whether to report to the board on Wednesday	Crawford: “there’s no way I can present this to the board on Wednesday night.” Whitney offers the default budget as a fallback; Crawford proposes moving the hearing to mid-January. Unresolved; raised again at 1:32:58. The board moved the budget two days later.
0:04:13	3. Crawford’s list of unanswered questions	Middle-school staffing; elementary paras; social workers; field trips; the preschool’s $60,000 versus $100,000; the ESSER phase-out; the $688,426.17 line; the overall increase; teachers’ association sign-off on the high-school schedule. Put to the administration on arrival; several were never answered.
0:08:35	4. The 13 December ESSER “sunset” handout	Read aloud by Sprague. The document has never been posted. See flag 5.
0:14:14	5. Administration arrives; revised middle-school structure	One principal, one assistant principal, no academic deans, five core teachers per subject; the guidance-counsellor count takes about twenty minutes to settle.
0:34:22	6. Claremont Middle School schedule, with the principal	Seven-period day, teams, academic centres, behaviour monitor, class sizes. Budget effect asked for repeatedly and never isolated.
1:07:22	7. Elementary staffing and an $85,000 overspend	Unfilled posts at Bluff, Title I lines, field trips, para counts by school. Several answers deferred to staff not present.
1:23:33	8. Tax impact	Assessment base, $0.81 per million, first estimate $1.38 and then $1.19 on the rate. No budget total attached.
1:29:13	9. The 13 December figures tested	The $100,000 schedule estimate is “not in the budget”; the preschool figure is settled at the absent director’s $60,000 by inference. See flag 6.
1:32:58	10. Scheduling, again	“I don’t think we are ready to present to the school board on Wednesday night.” Another meeting this week is floated and dropped over diary conflicts.
1:41:39	11. A target number	Crawford proposes working back from a $0.75 tax impact; Whitney proposes priorities first. No target agreed on camera. See flag 3.
2:06:20	12. The $688,426.17 line; forensic audit	Explained as a reconciling figure no one can allocate; forensic audit raised and declined. See flag 4.
2:13:38	13. District-wide sheet	ESSER-funded posts moving into the general fund, worked from a single sheet. See flag 7.
2:21:21	14. Collective bargaining kept out	“So is it appropriate to talk about what the impact of any of the negotiated agreements are?” Henry: “Not yet.” See flag 10.
2:24:03	15. Close, and the caucus	“Well I think we need to we need to caucus, I guess.” The administration is dismissed; the recording ends. See flag 2.

Discussion timeline

Chronological topics from the dialogue file. Quotations are the transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction, and garbled wording stays visible where a correction changes the sense.
Time	Topic	What was said	Flags
0:00:13	The chair calls it a caucus	Sprague: “Well, good afternoon everyone. It’s 1:00 on, What is today? Monday the 18th. Monday the 18th. And we’re here to look at the the budget and have a caucus with our with the three of us who are the budget finance committee.” At 0:00:39: “I didn’t I did not hear, from any of the other board members.”	HIGH HIGH
0:01:08	“no way I can present this”	Crawford: “I would just like to say at this point, there’s no way I can present this to the board on Wednesday night. There are too many questions.” At 0:01:30: “I do not feel comfortable explaining that to the rest of the board as yet.”	MEDIUM
0:01:37	The default budget raised and set aside	Whitney: “For me, I would go to the default budget would be my recommendation if we don’t have clarity.” Sprague at 0:02:33: “No. Nullifies all the negotiations.” Crawford at 0:02:35: “I think that there’s still work to be done on this budget before it goes to the full board.”
0:02:51	Whose problem the questions are	Whitney: “I think we have some legal constraints on when we have to be.” Crawford: “No, that’s not our problem. It’s their problem to get us the answers.” Whitney at 0:03:19: the 3 January date “was our snow date.” Crawford at 0:03:30 proposes a January 10 or 11 hearing and action on the 16th or 17th.
0:04:13	Middle-school staffing and elementary paras	Crawford: “I think the middle school has a lot of issues around staffing, and none of those answers have been achieved yet.” On field trips at 0:04:45: “They were requested at Dessner [Disnard] and we asked where they were.”
0:05:31	Preschool: two reports, two numbers	Crawford: “We have two conflicting reports. We have one said that it’s going to be a $60,000 increase. The other says $100,000 increase. Clearly there’s no definitive plan regarding that issue.”	MEDIUM
0:06:52	ESSER, and the $688,000 line	Crawford: “this Esser [ESSER] has ended and how the Esser positions either are phased out or incorporated into this budget is not clear at all” … “there’s an expense reduction line of 688,000 that I cannot make sense of.”	MEDIUM MEDIUM
0:07:22	An overall figure that does not reconcile	Crawford: “The grand total right now is a million for over last year’s budget, and that’s a 16% increase. I don’t think that’s tenable.” Quoted as transcribed; no correction is supplied. An increase of about $1.4 million on the FY2024 appropriation of $34,880,312 would be about 4 per cent.	MEDIUM
0:07:45	High-school schedule: union sign-off and $100,000	Crawford: “I want assurance that SRA [SREA] has signed off on this, and I want to know where the $100,000 cost is, because in Mr. Tempesta document, he said that they’re going to that and it would be $100,000 cost.”	MEDIUM
0:08:35	The 13 December “sunset” handout read into the record	Sprague: “one of the things we received from the administration on December 13th is this this handout.” At 0:08:42: “the title of this page is sunset. Additional staff funded by federal Esser [ESSER] positions intended to mitigate student learning loss.” At 0:09:13: “a reduction in regular instruction of 333,000. I’m looking at a reduction of 133,000 in special ed” … “Estimated additional impact 300,000.”	MEDIUM MEDIUM
0:10:10	“688 K is probably a dollar on the tax rate”	Sprague: “I think we asked what is that. And I think we were told, they weren’t sure that’s what I heard. And so 688 K is probably a dollar on the tax rate.” Whitney at 0:10:39: the amount “is consistent with the amount of money that was put back into the budget last budget cycle.”	MEDIUM
0:11:51	“Where’s the money going?”	Sprague: “So again I’m going to say the same thing I’ve been saying. I think every meeting” … “I can’t make that determination unless I know what is this staffing.” At 0:12:28: “Where’s the money going? And so I, I don’t know where, where it is. And so how do I know?”
0:14:14	The administration arrives, still printing	Tempesta: “We have a new schedule and that’s why we’re a little late.” At 0:14:45: “Mary’s on her way. She had the summary that Frank wanted. She was just printing that.” Henry at 0:18:06, on the missing district-wide page: “because I’m not done with it, so I’m going to finish it.” Sprague: “So that’s where half my questions are is in district wide.”	OBSERVATION
0:20:02	Revised middle-school structure	Tempesta at 0:20:32: “So we we have one assistant principal. Okay. One principal, no academic deans.” At 0:22:22: “they could get by with a class size of about 16 if they had, five teachers, okay, per subject area.”
0:24:35	Counting the counsellors	Whitney at 0:24:52: “they currently have three.” Tempesta at 0:25:26: “As her [ESSER] paid for the third guidance counselor. Yes, it was in the budget though.” Henry at 0:29:00: “I was I assume no because we had three in the budget.” Four participants take several minutes to settle a count at one school.	MEDIUM
0:27:43	Two CMS staff introduced	Tempesta: “We have Miss Steel and Miss Foster from the middle school here, a counselor and a schedule extraordinaire who put this together.” Neither first name is spoken.	HIGH
0:30:27	A career counsellor at the tech center	Whitney: “Why do we have a career counselor at the tech, when normally that sits within the guidance department at the high school?” Crawford at 0:30:58 explains the community-facing role. No document is produced; the point is dropped.
0:33:23	The teachers’ association	Crawford: “You said you were going to meet with Syria [SREA] last week.” Tempesta at 0:33:35: “I met with the SRE [SREA] about the high school schedule in the middle school schedule”; at 0:33:51: “They said, yeah, we know. So when we when we see it, give us a breakdown and we will.”
0:34:22	The principal arrives from covering a class	Romeo: “So I sub today, so I apologize. Just getting over here.”
0:35:50	The case for the seven-period day	Romeo at 0:36:20: “right now our teachers teach three out of the five blocks that we have.” At 0:37:34: “we are giving our teachers more time with our students by extending out the blocks that we have.”
0:38:52	The schedule, from its author	Foster: “So we have five teams in essence working within the building for each grade.” Romeo at 0:40:45: “We have seven a seven period day the one period is lunch which is 90 minutes.”
0:44:24	Who staffs the academic centres	Foster: “based on the proposal that I’ve put together, every teacher has two student center blocks per week, where they’re pushing into those student centers.” Crawford at 0:45:32: “there’s no staff for these learning centers other than the teachers on a rotation basis.”
0:55:19	“Call it what it is”	Sprague: “So my suggestion is don’t call it a behavioral specialist. Call it call. Call it what it is. I brought the model to Stevens with the discipline monitor.” At 0:55:48: “this is the person that bird dogs minor infractions. Is that what you’re describing?” Romeo: “That is what I’m describing.”
0:56:31	The centres are unstaffed in the budget	Crawford: “the, academic centers would be unstaffed.” Romeo at 0:57:35: “They’re not in this budget currently. I would like them to be.” Foster at 0:58:43: “that’s all I was tasked with doing and that’s why that’s all that addresses.”	POSITIVE
0:59:03	The business administrator corrects herself	Henry: “I need to correct myself. Yes. It is still in there. Thank you.” At 0:59:09: “That’s my bad for not putting that.”	POSITIVE
0:59:25	The redesign’s budget effect	Whitney at 1:00:03: “A decrease of 600,000.” Crawford: “638,000. But that’s assuming that the figures for budget were right.” Henry at 1:00:55: much of the drop is “because of the special ed added district placements.” Romeo at 1:04:03: “Do not have that information.”	MEDIUM
1:07:22	$85,000 over on middle-school salaries	Henry: “in this year’s budget so far we’re $85,000 over budget and teacher salaries based on this year’s budget in the middle school.” At 1:07:44: “We’ve staffed some. But we’ve stopped them late.” At 1:09:25: “I would have to go back to confirm that, double check it.”	MEDIUM
1:14:14	Unfilled posts at Bluff	Henry: “I’ve got two open positions or three open positions that I didn’t put a dollar value on.” Sprague at 1:14:39: “Do we have three empty rooms at bluff down?”
1:18:16	Field trips	Crawford: “in this new budget that we, that you just gave us, where are the field trips listed?” Henry: “I’m not sure I’m going to have to find out for you.” At 1:18:41: “bluff did not include any because they said that the PTO pays for it.”	OBSERVATION
1:20:43	Para counts by school	Henry at 1:21:01: “We need to talk to Ben because there may be a reason why Ben feels 11 was what they needed.” Tempesta at 1:22:43: “When Ben started, I think he had 116 powers [paras] in these cuts to under 70.”
1:23:33	The tax rate	Sprague: “the bigger the bigger elephant in the room” … “that’s the impact on on taxes.” Henry at 1:24:00: “Your tax rate dropped.” Assessment base at 1:25:32: “It’s one 1,228,844,331.”
1:27:03	$0.81 per million	Henry: “So for every million on the tax rate, you’re looking at $0.81.” Sprague at 1:28:31: “$1.38 is the real cost.”
1:29:13	The $100,000 estimate tested	Crawford: “Mr. Tempesta in, in your hand out of the 13th. It says that the, changing from the high school from the block to traditional would be a cost of $100,000.” Tempesta at 1:30:14: “the only reason I put that in, Mr. Pratt thought that he could do it neutral.” At 1:30:33: “No. All these were estimates.”	MEDIUM
1:31:16	Moving the alternative programme: no cost	Whitney at 1:31:37: “We don’t have an estimate on what it’s going to cost to move them off campus.” Crawford at 1:31:53: “there was no cost built in for that.”	MEDIUM
1:32:01	Preschool: $60,000 or $100,000	Crawford: “Ben had 60,000. You had 100,000. So I guess the 60,000 is more the figure.” At 1:36:55: “that was for approximately 35 students.” Tempesta at 1:37:13: “I think 85 over the course of the year.”	MEDIUM
1:32:38	The district-wide report has not arrived	Sprague: “probably 70% of my questions have to do with district wide.” Henry at 1:32:46: “I actually got it done. I just haven’t sent it to you.”	OBSERVATION
1:32:58	Not ready for Wednesday	Crawford: “I don’t think we are ready to present to the school board on Wednesday night.” At 1:33:35: “if we can’t give this to the board Wednesday night, I don’t know how we can have a hearing on January 3rd.” Whitney: “The hearings been warned.”	MEDIUM
1:34:23	Another meeting this week, dropped	Crawford: “Another meeting this week.” Sprague at 1:34:36: “It’s my bowling night.” At 1:34:45: “Let’s get the district wide, look at it on our own” … “come up with a, with a target number of what we think is palatable.”
1:35:39	A paraprofessional negotiation, not discussed	Tempesta at 1:35:48: “We have a meeting with them coming in for Wednesday”; at 1:35:52: “So, yeah, we shouldn’t talk about this right now.”	POSITIVE
1:41:39	A target tax impact	Crawford: “I think this group, the three of us need at least one more meeting.” At 1:42:11: “If I look at a target, tax impact of, let’s say $0.75.” Sprague at 1:42:39: “slightly under $1 million, then.”	MEDIUM
1:43:25	Priorities first	Whitney: “I just think we’re looking at it the wrong way. Okay. I think we should do is we should have what our priorities are.” Sprague at 1:47:21: “So the must haves and the nice to haves.”
1:48:19	Pay	Tempesta: “Teaching staff is competitive.” Whitney at 1:48:39: “in my world, if you’re a staff nurse and you work on the floor, you get paid less than you do if you work in the intensive care unit.”
1:50:05	$1.19 on the rate	Henry: “It’s $1.19” … At 1:50:18: “you’re going from 14, 14, to $15.33.” At 1:51:08: “This is with nothing coming off the tax rate.”
1:51:47	A member’s account of the special-education floor	Sprague at 1:52:09: “That depends on your model. You’re only required to provide services to special ed kids. That’s the requirement.” A characterization offered in discussion.	OBSERVATION
1:53:16	The counsellor ratio	Whitney at 1:53:35: “No, it’s 300 students per one guidance counselor. And we have under 600 students.” Crawford at 1:53:51: “Keep in mind that the state you’re talking about state minimums.”	POSITIVE
1:54:32	The elementary schools	Whitney: “that’s where the flashing light is. That’s where the that’s where the catastrophe is to me.” Tempesta at 1:58:27: “I would invest in the elementaries.”
1:56:29	Past the scheduled end	Crawford: “We have two, two, three minutes on the.” Whitney: “I’m willing to go over if you guys are willing to go over.”	POSITIVE
1:59:17	No data on what the interventions bought	Sprague: “it would be would have been very helpful to have gotten over the last two years of pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into interventions, again, most most of it being Esser [ESSER] money.”	MEDIUM
2:03:33	“a little more time”	Sprague: “I agree with Candy that I’d like to have a little more time to look at it.” Tempesta at 2:03:50: “We can meet again tomorrow or Wednesday.”
2:04:16	“we’re looking at 1.783”	Sprague: “So, Mrs. Henry, so we’re looking at 1.783. So if that if we went with that budget, that’s going to be a dollar.” Henry at 2:04:26: “Dollar 19 with the, with everything that I, with all the revenues that I’ve estimated in.” An increase, not a total; no total is spoken in the meeting.	MEDIUM
2:05:07	“1.4 million or 9.15%”	Henry: “the net change of local tax assessment that needs to be raised is 1.4 million or 9.15%. So even though the budgets up 5.7%, the overall increase to the amount we have to raise is nine.”	MEDIUM
2:06:20	“What in the world is that?”	Sprague: “page 44 in the document you gave us today, okay, board voting, voted expense reduction.” Henry at 2:06:41: “when the budget was uploaded, Dave, Jack [Dave Jack] and I had this number” … “I know a million was added back then, but I’m not sure what the 688,000.” The comma in “Dave, Jack” is the recognizer’s; it is one person.	MEDIUM
2:07:31	A number that cannot be allocated	Henry: “I don’t know what it’s allocated to.” Crawford at 2:08:14: “what I hear you saying that you can explain about 350, 325,000 of.”	MEDIUM
2:08:52	Prior-year figures do not match	Henry: “I’ve looked at spreadsheets that had been done by my predecessor and compared them to the budget. They don’t match up.” Sprague at 2:10:18: “it’s like mining Bitcoin.” At 2:10:32: “so at some point you have to put a number in that reconciles the two columns. Right. And that’s the number.” Henry: “Right. That was the number that reconciled it.”	MEDIUM
2:11:35	Forensic audit, declined	Whitney: “So at what point is a forensic audit?” Henry at 2:11:39: “I had a talk with our audience [auditors] about that. I don’t feel there’s any reason for a forensic audit.” At 2:12:02: “a forensic audit is not cheap.”	MEDIUM
2:12:37	The comparison year is unreliable	Crawford: “this year’s is not as accurate as it could be.” Henry at 2:13:12: “that’s going to take me some time.”	MEDIUM
2:13:38	ESSER posts move into the general fund	Sprague at 2:13:57: “Esser [ESSER] moved to a general budget.” At 2:15:09: “I thought we were getting rid of all of those.” Whitney at 2:18:59: “so that’s important to know is that we actually have added positions.” At 2:20:40: “I’m seeing a quarter of a million already in just salaries that were Esser [ESSER] funded last year.”	MEDIUM
2:21:21	Negotiated agreements kept out	Sprague: “So is it appropriate to talk about what the impact of any of the negotiated agreements are?” Henry at 2:21:27: “Not yet.” Sprague at 2:21:29: “My inner voice is saying, don’t talk about that.”	POSITIVE
2:22:40	“So 11:00 Wednesday maybe”	Sprague: “So let’s we digress there for a minute. So 11:00 Wednesday maybe.” Crawford: “What’s 11:00 on Wednesday?” Henry at 2:23:06: “It’s Wednesday, but I think it’s before the meeting, isn’t it?” What was booked, if anything, is not stated.
2:23:27	Last positions	Crawford: “I can’t do it just because I don’t have enough information in my brain to figure that out.” Whitney at 2:23:36: “I already found a quarter of a million.” At 2:23:51: “And I, I mean, I can find 1.4 right now.”	MEDIUM
2:24:03	“we need to caucus”	Sprague: “Well I think we need to we need to caucus, I guess.” At 2:24:10: “I think. Are we done with the admin? I think we may be.” Henry at 2:24:16: “We’re done. I’m sorry. You guys want.” Sprague: “Thank you for doing this. Very helpful.” The recording ends shortly after.	HIGH

Items flagged for review

These flags are a reviewer’s aid, read against New Hampshire and federal law in force on 18 December 2023. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; an Observation rests on no confirmed rule. Missing records are graded HIGH where the absence is unmitigated and MEDIUM where the record mitigates it, and each card says which limb applies.

HIGH A public body sat for two hours and twenty-four minutes on the budget with no agenda, packet or minutes, and two days later approved board minutes said the minutes were online

Limb: unmitigated. All three members of a three-member committee were present throughout. No minutes exist in any district share, and nothing on the recording says minutes are being kept or are coming; the board clerk is neither present nor mentioned. A finance subcommittee is a public body in its own right: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) reaches any board or committee of a school district “or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof, or advisory committee thereto.” RSA 91-A:2, II (as amended by 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023) required minutes naming the members and persons appearing, describing the subject matter and final decisions, open to inspection within five business days. The committee took no vote, but it received the revised middle-school staffing model, the tax-rate estimate, the explanation of the $688,426.17 line and the refusal of a forensic audit, and decided not to be ready for Wednesday before reporting to the board on Wednesday. Without an attendance record this page cannot even supply first names for the two CMS staff introduced at 0:27:43.

The approved minutes of 20 December 2023 record, under the Finance Subcommittee item: “Subcommittee meetings and minutes are available online for people to review.” The meetings are online as video. The minutes are not. The 6 December minutes had put it accurately: “Sessions have been recorded on CCTV.” Whether 24-hour notice was posted cannot be established from the record either way; the date was announced on camera at the 1 and 13 December sessions.

Mitigation that does not change the limb: the session was broadcast because the board chair asked on 1 December that it be recorded (flag 12), and the absence of a file in Drive does not prove no minutes were ever written. It does mean none has been made public in two years and nine months. A Drive folder titled “Claremont Finance Sub Committee” was created in the district’s account on 27 October 2022; its contents could not be listed in this run and its metadata shows a modification on 1 December 2025, so this page draws nothing from it.

Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (subcommittees are public bodies); RSA 91-A:2, II, 2023 codification (2023, 188:1; minutes contents and five business days; mover/seconder clause 2018, 244:1); approved board minutes, 20 December 2023.

HIGH The session ends with the administration dismissed so the full committee can caucus, and the recording stops; no caucus exemption reaches a nonpartisan school board

The caucus was planned in public. On 1 December the board chair proposed the 18th “For a caucus. I would like it still to be recorded and we can have a discussion”; on 13 December she said “The caucus on the 18th is just us” and “admin is welcome but not required” (both quoted from those recordings; see the 1 December and 13 December pages). Here the chair opens by naming it (0:00:13) and closes with “Well I think we need to we need to caucus, I guess” (2:24:03), asks “Are we done with the admin?” (2:24:10), and thanks the business administrator. The recording then ends.

A convening of all three members to discuss the recommendation the committee exists to make is a meeting under RSA 91-A:2, I. The only caucus exclusion, RSA 91-A:2, I(c), covers elected members “of the same political party who were elected on a partisan basis.” RSA 671:30 requires every school district to elect its officers on the non-partisan ballot (unamended since 1979), so the exclusion cannot apply. No motion to enter nonpublic session under RSA 91-A:3 was made; “nonpublic” and “91-A” do not occur in the dialogue file.

What the record does not show: that the caucus convened, how long it lasted, or what was said or decided. This page infers nothing about its content. The grade rests on a stated plan, repeated on three recordings, for a quorum to meet after the public portion with no notice, no recording and no minutes. Mitigation: the committee televised five working sessions, took no vote at any of them, and the members asked for this one to be recorded.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I and I(c), 2023 codification; RSA 671:30 (non-partisan ballot for school district officers; 1979, 321:1); RSA 91-A:3, I(b), 2023 codification (motion and roll call for nonpublic session); RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d).

MEDIUM No total is spoken; the increase on the table implies about $350,000 more than the board moved two days later, and no public record accounts for the gap

The only size figures spoken are an increase and a local raise. At 2:04:16 the chair: “so we’re looking at 1.783”; at 2:05:07 Henry: “1.4 million or 9.15%” with “the budgets up 5.7%.” On the FY2024 appropriation of $34,880,311.91, an increase of $1,783,000 gives about $36,663,000. On 20 December the board moved $36,313,407.97, the Grand Total of the district’s Updated Claremont School District Budget 12.20.23 (increase $1,433,096.06, 4.11 per cent; printed 12/20/2023 2:06:15 PM). The difference is about $350,000. This is arithmetic across two records, not a figure anyone stated, and the three percentages spoken here do not reconcile to one total.

On 5 January 2024 Crawford was still working it out: “I was trying to determine where the 350,000. These are all big round numbers. Where it came from,” finding the alternative-education lines zeroed out, about 240,000, “comparing the 1218 budget to the 1220 budget,” and objecting “We weren’t informed that some program got cut” (quoted from the 5 January 2024 recording). A gap between what was discussed on tape and what was moved is a hole in the record, not proof of what the caucus decided; this page asserts nothing about the caucus. On 17 January the board adopted $36,117,406.87.

Why MEDIUM: no rule requires a committee to know a total on a given date. The grade rests on the process gap. Under RSA 32:5 the budget goes to a public hearing where all purposes and amounts “shall be disclosed or discussed at the final hearing,” and this committee was the board’s only line-by-line reviewer. Two members said on camera they were not ready (0:01:08, 1:32:58); the board chair was still finding discretionary money at 2:23:51.

Sources: RSA 32:5, 2023 codification (hearing; amounts disclosed or discussed at the final hearing); Updated Claremont School District Budget 12.20.23; the 20 December page, Claremont School Board, December 20, 2023; Finance Committee, January 5, 2024.

MEDIUM A $688,426.17 line is a reconciling figure no one can allocate, the prior-year comparatives are unreliable by the business administrator’s account, and a forensic audit was raised and declined

The district’s 20 December budget carries “Board Voted Expense Reduct” at ($688,426.17) for FY2023–24, zero in the proposal, so its removal reads as an increase. Asked at 2:06:20, Henry traced it to the handover from the interim business administrator and the deliberative session’s restoration (2:06:41), and said at 2:07:31 “I don’t know what it’s allocated to.” At 2:10:32 she agreed it was “the number that reconciled” two columns. She also said the predecessor’s spreadsheets “don’t match up” with the budget (2:08:52), and Crawford at 2:12:37 that the current-year column “is not as accurate as it could be.” RSA 32:5 requires budget forms with comparative columns of prior-year appropriations and expenditures (¶IV). The middle school is $85,000 over on teacher salaries with posts unfilled, explained as a hypothesis (1:07:22, 1:09:25).

Whitney asked “So at what point is a forensic audit?” (2:11:35); Henry declined it (2:11:39, 2:12:02). No motion followed. RSA 21-J:19 permits, and does not time, independent audits, so this is a control-weakness finding, not a missed deadline. Mitigation: the business administrator had been in post about five months, did not create the figure, and explained it openly on camera.

Sources: RSA 32:5, III–IV, 2023 codification (gross basis; comparative columns); RSA 21-J:19 (independent audits; permissive as to timing); Updated Claremont School District Budget 12.20.23.

MEDIUM The committee worked from at least three documents the public has never seen, including the budget version handed out at this meeting

A new budget version is distributed during the session: Henry at 0:26:03, “it’s in the new one because the one I just gave you”; the chair at 2:06:20, “page 44 in the document you gave us today.” Crawford later named it “the 1218 budget” (5 January 2024 recording). It is in no district share; only the 20 December version is. Two 13 December handouts, the ESSER “sunset” sheet read aloud at 0:08:42–0:09:13 and the superintendent’s schedule-cost sheet cited at 1:29:13, have never been posted. A viewer hears page numbers for two hours against documents no one outside the room can open. RSA 91-A:1 states the law’s purpose as “the greatest possible public access to the actions, discussions and records of all public bodies”; no request for these documents appears in the record, so no refusal is alleged.

Sources: RSA 91-A:1 (purpose); RSA 91-A:4, I, 2023 codification (right to inspect); Finance Committee, January 5, 2024.

MEDIUM Each cost figure the committee tested was an estimate its author could not stand behind

The $100,000 for the high-school schedule change: “the only reason I put that in, Mr. Pratt thought that he could do it neutral” (1:30:14); Whitney, “currently this 100,000 is not in the budget”; Tempesta, “All these were estimates” (1:30:33). The preschool increase: $60,000 from the absent special-education director, $100,000 from the superintendent, then “85 over the course of the year” (1:32:01–1:37:13). The middle school’s $333,000 reduction against a $300,000 add-back (0:09:13) is not reconciled. The redesign’s own cost is never isolated (1:04:03). The alternative programme’s move has no estimate at all (1:31:37).

Why MEDIUM: no rule requires a working draft to be internally consistent. The grade rests on the control gap fourteen days before a hearing at which all amounts must be disclosed or discussed. Every concession was volunteered under questioning.

Sources: RSA 32:5, 2023 codification; Finance Committee, December 13, 2023.

MEDIUM ESSER-funded posts are moving onto local taxation and no one can state how many or at what total cost

The district-wide sheet, reached in the last eleven minutes (2:13:38), lists an arts coordinator, behaviour interventionists, a behaviour analyst, an occupational therapist, an instructional coach and an ESL teacher moving from ESSER into the general budget. Whitney: “we actually have added positions” (2:18:59) and “a quarter of a million already in just salaries” (2:20:40), salaries only, benefits not shown. Henry offers the total but has not produced it. No ESSER balance is stated. ARP ESSER funds had to be obligated by 30 September 2024 and liquidated within 120 days (U.S. Department of Education). No federal violation is alleged; absorbing staff was expected. The finding is the absence of a running total for a permanent cost shift, where 2 CFR 200.303 expects effective internal control over federal awards.

Sources: U.S. Department of Education, ARP ESSER obligation deadline (30 September 2024; liquidation by 28 January 2025); 2 CFR 200.344(b), 2023 edition (120-day liquidation); 2 CFR 200.303 (internal control); 20 U.S.C. §1225(b).

OBSERVATION The administration arrived late, the district-wide report never arrived, and questions from 13 December were still open at the close

The committee sat alone for fourteen minutes (0:14:14); the business administrator arrived distributing sheets (0:16:25); the principal at 0:34:22. The district-wide section, where the chair said “probably 70% of my questions” lay (1:32:38), was finished but not printed (1:32:46). Field trips (1:18:16), para counts (1:21:01) and the Bluff interventionists (2:14:27) went unanswered, with no owner or date. No rule sets these standards; the delays came from producing revised material the committee had asked for.

Sources: the recording at the timestamps above.

OBSERVATION A member’s description of the special-education floor, while weighing a preschool programme for about 35 children

Sprague at 1:52:09: “You’re only required to provide services to special ed kids. That’s the requirement.” He was arguing a budget method, not giving a legal opinion, and the sentence is cut off. For a reader checking it: 34 CFR 300.101 requires a free appropriate public education to be available to all children residing in the State between the ages of 3 and 21, inclusive, and RSA 186-C:2 (2023 codification; amended 2025) defines a child with a disability by the same ages. Whether those permit the delivery model he had in mind is not decided here.

Sources: 34 CFR 300.101; RSA 186-C:2, 2023 codification.

POSITIVE Live collective bargaining was kept out of the session, and the agreements were ratified in public two days later

At 1:35:52 the superintendent stopped himself on a paraprofessional meeting (“we shouldn’t talk about this right now”), and at 2:21:21 the chair asked whether the negotiated agreements could be discussed, accepted “Not yet,” and said “My inner voice is saying, don’t talk about that.” RSA 91-A:2, I(a) excludes “[s]trategy or negotiations with respect to collective bargaining” from the definition of a meeting. On 20 December the board ratified the CAMCE, CAS and paraprofessional agreements in open session, with movers, seconders and a tax impact in the minutes. Crawford’s question whether she and Sprague should attend the Wednesday session (1:35:56) raises no notice issue for the same reason.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I(a), 2023 codification; approved board minutes, 20 December 2023.

POSITIVE The state minimum counsellor ratio was stated accurately and used as a floor, not an answer

Whitney at 1:53:35: “it’s 300 students per one guidance counselor. And we have under 600 students.” The rule in force in December 2023, then numbered Ed 306.15 (“Provision of Staff and Staff Qualifications”), required one full-time certified school counsellor per 300 students at middle and high school. Crawford countered that the minimums are low (1:53:51). Vintage caution: since the readoption effective 13 December 2024, Ed 306.15 is “School Year”, a different rule.

Sources: NHDOE side-by-side of Ed 306, March 2023 (existing-rule column); Ed 300, current text.

POSITIVE Officials conceded the limits of their own figures without being caught first, the committee sat past its window, and the session was televised at a member’s request

Romeo: “They’re not in this budget currently. I would like them to be” (0:57:35). Foster bounded her own document (0:58:43). Henry corrected herself unprompted (0:59:03). Tempesta: “All these were estimates” (1:30:33). The committee ran about twenty-eight minutes over (1:56:29); the $688,426.17 exchange and the district-wide review happened in that time. The session is public because the board chair asked on 1 December that it be recorded. No rule requires any of this.

Sources: the recording at the timestamps above; Finance Committee, December 1, 2023.

Appendix — source files

Official and public sources

Cablecast: School Board Finance Mtg 12/18/23 (show 15451)
No agenda, packet or minutes in any district share. Searched per MAP.md §38 (verified 2026-08-28): the 2023 Meeting Documents archive, both candidate year folders of the Meeting Minutes share, the next board packet folder 28. CSB 12.20.23, and keyword searches.
Claremont Finance Sub Committee (Drive folder created 27 October 2022; contents not listable in this run)
Updated Claremont School District Budget 12.20.23.pdf (20 December packet; 55 pages; printed 12/20/2023 2:06:15 PM; posted 21 December 2023)
21. approved CSB meeting minutes 12.20.23.pdf
CSB draft minutes 12.6.23 (1) (2).pdf; approved 6 December 2023 minutes
Related pages: Finance Committee, November 30, 2023; December 1; December 6; December 13; School Board, December 20; Finance Committee, January 5, 2024; School Board, January 17, 2024

Project files

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

Dialogue/15451 SchoolBoardFinance121823.mp4.CSV (1,466 rows)
Input/Videos/15451 SchoolBoardFinance121823.mp4
Input/Transcripts/15451 SchoolBoardFinance121823.mp4.json
Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 38
Other recordings quoted, each marked where quoted: Dialogue/15444 SchoolBoardFinance120123.mp4.CSV; Dialogue/15471 SchoolBoardFinance121323.mp4.CSV; Dialogue/15510 SchoolBoardFinance010524.mp4.CSV; Dialogue/15531 SchoolBoard011724.mp4.CSV

Laws and rules cited on this page

Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:1; RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (2008, 354:1); RSA 91-A:2, I, I(a), I(c), II (2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023; the 2025, 112:1 additions do not apply); RSA 91-A:3, I(b) (2023 codification); RSA 91-A:4, I (2023 codification)
Elections: RSA 671:30 (1979, 321:1)
Budgets and audits: RSA 32:5 (2023 codification; later amended 2025, 144:1); RSA 21-J:19
Special education: RSA 186-C:2 (2023 codification); 34 CFR 300.101
Rules: Ed 306.15 as numbered in 2023 (NHDOE side-by-side); Ed 300 (renumbered eff. Dec. 13, 2024)
Federal: 20 U.S.C. §1225(b); 2 CFR 200.344(b) (2023 edition); 2 CFR 200.303; ED ARP ESSER obligation deadlines memo
Not applied: RSA 189:74 (public comment) is not applied to this subcommittee; its text speaks of “a meeting of the school board held under RSA 91-A:2”. RSA 186-C:18, III and RSA 198:40-a are not cited; no aid or adequacy figure is at issue.