| 0:03:01 | The hearing is framed, under three names | Whitney: “We’re going to have a public hearing to consider a grant of a revenue anticipation note. We’re going to open the public hearing with a motion.” The agenda says Grant Anticipation Note; the slides say Reimbursement Anticipation Note; the resolution says revolving debt in anticipation of adequacy education grant reimbursement. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:05:51 | Superintendent services | O’Shaughnessy: “New Hampshire state law does not require a school district to have a superintendent.” At 0:07:12: the SAU board, “not this board hires the superintendent.” | |
| 0:08:01 | Who is running the district | O’Hearn: on August 22 the SAU 6 board placed Business Administrator Mary Henry on paid administrative leave and made Angell full-time Business Administrator; on August 26 it placed Superintendent Chris Pratt on paid leave (0:08:27); on August 29 the Director of Student Services “abruptly resigned” (0:09:01). | |
| 0:18:34 | $5 million of overdue invoices | Angell: “I have discovered approximately $5 million in outstanding overdue invoices and liabilities. Payments have not been entered or reconciled correctly in the accounting system.” The vendors include “employee health insurance, food service for students, and the New Hampshire Retirement for staff.” | MEDIUM |
| 0:19:53 | How Claremont got here (slides) | O’Shaughnessy reads: “Federal grant reimbursement temporarily held due to filing noncompliance by the administration, the board was not notified by administration.” Then: “Errors in calculating fund balance resulted in miscalculation of 2025 local tax rate.” | HIGH MEDIUM |
| 0:24:43 | “a 40% confidence level” | Angell: “I tell them I have a 40% level on it. That means it’s not reliable.” At 0:24:58: “Basically, nothing is reliable. And right now, cash hasn’t been reconciled for Claremont school districts since, I believe, a July of 2022.” O’Shaughnessy at 0:25:43: “So there is no general ledger.” | HIGH |
| 0:30:48 | Audit status | Crawford: “The 22 audits have been done and they are we expecting the final report anytime this week?” At 0:31:12: “They are trying to do 23, 24, 25 concurrently”. At 0:35:11: monthly meetings with the auditor and the business office from March. | HIGH |
| 0:42:24 | Approved is not lent | O’Shaughnessy on an email announcing the loan: “It was also premature because all they did was say, you’re approved.” At 0:42:42: “there’s a lot that has to go on prior to the bank actually loaning the money, including this funding hearing tonight.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:44:12 | The statute, read into the record | Angell reads the slide on RSA 198:20-d: “Notwithstanding any other provision of the law to the contrary, a school district or city with a dependent school district may hurt [incur] debt in anticipation of reimbursement”. At 0:44:48: “The governing body, after notice in public hearing”; “Any borrowing under this section shall be exempt from the provisions of RC [RSA] 33 relative to Delimits [debt limits].” | MEDIUM |
| 0:45:27 | What the note does and does not do | “So tonight the board is going to vote on whether to approve the loan at the at the meeting immediately following the public hearing.” “This loan will be paid in full in April of 2026.” “it does not reduce the deficit.” O’Shaughnessy at 0:45:58: “it’s like a payday loan, right?” Crawford at 0:51:17: at 2% for about eight months, “between 65 and $75,000 of interest.” | MEDIUM |
| 0:47:50 | An apology | Whitney: “The board and the ministry [administrative] team has felt inadequate in our ability to communicate to the community, and we want to apologize for that.” At 0:49:40: “we have to be, have a scheduled meeting to have a quorum of folks together to communicate.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:52:18 | Accountability measures | Whitney: audits completed, “an independent operations review”; at 0:52:51, “We welcome as a board, the scrutiny. We’re requesting the scrutiny.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:59:31 | The state’s message | O’Shaughnessy on meetings with the governor’s office and legislative leaders; at 1:00:11, “the state wants the district to be accountable, transparent.” | |
| 1:03:31 | The floor opens | “Each speaker will be given three minutes and each should be a citizen of Claremont.” At 1:04:35: “We’re hoping to keep the time limit for this roughly no more than 45 minutes.” Comment ran about 1 hour 49 minutes; no speaker was cut off for straying from the note. | POSITIVE |
| 1:12:33 | Donations through the Alumni Association | Chamberlain: scholarships are not affected; checks to the Association are tax-deductible. Angell at 1:17:43: “all of these transactions, I’m going to report to the school board and at a public meeting”. | |
| 1:34:46 | Federal grants and the corrective action plan | (Unidentified; the minutes give this to Koski.) “Grants have been fully reimbursed from 2020, 2021, 2223 [2022, 2023].” At 1:35:15: the state “did an audit on our grants out of compliance with federal rules”; at 1:35:33, “They call it a corrective action plan that’s in place. All of the corrections are due in January.” | MEDIUM |
| 1:36:52 | The tax rate and a $94,000 surplus | Angell: “I believe it’s fiscal year 22. The audited financial statements say that the district had a surplus of $94,000. The district put over $1 million as a reduction of the tax rate. That’s $1 million that the district did not have to reduce the tax rate.” O’Shaughnessy at 1:38:43: “I suspect that has a lot to do with their overestimating revenues”. | HIGH |
| 1:39:28 | “Paid leave was not one of the penalties” | Kevin Tyson: in financial services, failures bring “civil penalties, criminal penalties or be barred from the industry for life.” Crawford at 1:41:38: “There is no, there is no teeth.” Hawkins at 1:42:54: “The fiscal responsibility policies have all been updated.” Howard at 1:43:30: a policy “we’re hopefully going to bring within two weeks, actually has an exact mechanism.” | POSITIVE |
| 1:52:21 | The treasurer | Stephen Horsky asks the status of the treasurer’s bond; Angell: “It’s been paid in full.” At 1:53:16: “our treasurer, who we elect as citizens, is not sitting here”; at 1:54:01, “So the shortfall of money would have been known a hell of a lot quicker if somebody else was doing their job.” No one answered the second question. | MEDIUM |
| 1:54:43 | Students on testing and graduation | Lilly Clark: “I don’t try on those tests because they mean absolutely nothing to us.” At 1:55:19: “will I be able to graduate from the school since we are in $5 million in debt?” Angell: “I feel pretty confident that you’re going to graduate.” On the wellness policy at 1:56:38; Hawkins: “we have just updated”. Miles Sheehan at 1:58:24: “what can we take back to our classmates from this meeting?” | |
| 2:22:46 | Where the $4,000,000 goes | Angell: “There are some bills that were unpaid from last year, and that $4 million is going towards pretty much restarting our relationships with our vendors.” At 2:23:16: “We owed them $265,000 to make sure they were servicing food on the first day.” At 2:26:39: “as of a week ago, I had just enough money to make payroll for last Friday.” | HIGH |
| 2:23:53 | Grants not lost, not yet claimed | (Unidentified; minutes: Koski.) “We are current on our reimbursements up to 2023 grants, which are still active until September.” At 2:24:17: “we didn’t lose $1 million in grant reimbursements. We just haven’t processed them yet.” | MEDIUM |
| 2:37:01 | Why a federal audit is owed | Angell: “you spend about $3 million in federal grants. You’re required to do what you’re required to do an audit. For the government.” “you’re required under the federal government rules to submit that audit to the federal government within nine months after the end of the fiscal year.” | HIGH |
| 2:44:31 | Rep. Hope Damon on adequacy | “in the ranch pace [Rand case], which came out three weeks ago, sometime in August, they ruled against the state again”. At 2:45:02: “Claremont and many other communities throughout the state pay heavily in property taxes to fund our public schools because we don’t have a fair and equitable state education funding system.” Reported as her characterization. | |
| 2:52:59 | Closing the public portion | “I’d like to ask for a motion to close the public hearing portion of the meeting”. Madden moves; the chair corrects at 2:53:24, “We just have to amend it to say the public part of the hearing.” Voice vote at 2:53:40. | POSITIVE |
| 2:53:56 | A motion, then the motion that mattered | Whitney: “There’s a motion on the table to approve the loan as described by Mr. Angel[l]. Is there a second that. Seconded by Arlene Hawkins?” O’Shaughnessy at 2:54:55: “In order to move forward with the loan, the board needs to pass a resolution.” | MEDIUM |
| 2:55:17 | The resolution, read in full | Hawkins: “I move that the resolution entitled resolution to authorize $4 million of revolving debt in anticipation of adequacy education grant reimbursement, be approved in form presented to this meeting, and that an attested copy of said resolution be included in the minutes of this meeting.” At 2:56:18: “The district held a public hearing on September 3rd, 2025, to consider issuance of a note and provided notice of said public hearing by publication no later than August 27th, 2025.” At 2:58:04: FY2026 adequacy grant “$16,931,006.67”. | MEDIUM |
| 2:59:39 | Roll call: 6–0 | Kronberg calls each member; six “Yes” answers (2:59:39–2:59:45). Whitney at 2:59:53: “you’ll have to sign the document that Arlene sent down before submitted to the minutes.” | POSITIVE |
| 3:00:27 | The acting superintendent | O’Hearn: “I recognize I’m not an education expert, not even pretending to be one. Working at Claremont schools is my first experience education.” | |
| 3:02:11 | Sprague’s resignation and the seat | “Mr. Frank Sprague, regretfully, submitted his letter of resignation.” At 3:03:08: letters of intent “no later than 3:30 p.m. on the Monday prior to the next scheduled board meeting, which should be September 15th, 2025.” Two people had already come forward (3:02:45). | MEDIUM |
| 3:19:25 | The chair asks leave to seek an investigation | Whitney had written to the Attorney General; at 3:19:51: “I can only do that as a private citizen and not as, An arm of the board or a representative of the board.” The board consented; at 3:26:47: “as long as it’s documented in the minutes that we had consented”. | POSITIVE |
| 3:21:42 | Payroll controls | Madden: “it was no signing in, there’s no signing out, there’s no time clock in the system.” At 3:22:19: “Nobody was doing that. And the payroll clerk had the the ability to just go straight across the board.” When he first raised it, “I got shut down pretty quickly, couldn’t ask the questions.” | MEDIUM |