Claremont School Board, Public Hearing on Proposed Budgets — January 20, 2026

Participants

Everyone heard or recorded as present. Names and wards follow the approved minutes, which name the public speakers the dialogue file mostly leaves as “Unidentified public commenter”; a public speaker is matched to a minutes entry by the order and content of the remarks.
Name	Role	Participation
Heather Whitney	Board chair	Opened the hearing and set its purpose; stated the effect of closing it before the vote.
Arlene Hawkins	Board member	Moved to close the hearing (per the chair on tape and the minutes).
Frank Sprague	Board member	Seconded the motion to close.
Michael Petrin; Candace Crawford; William Madden; Loren Howard	Vice chair; board members	Present at roll call. No attributed remarks. Crawford was named on the agenda as co-presenter of the budget summary.
Noelle Kronberg	School Board Clerk	Called the roll; read the comment rules; kept time.
Matt Angell	Senior Comptroller / Interim Business Administrator	Presented both operating budgets, both default budgets, tax rates and the four other warrant articles; costed the petitioned cap; answered most public questions.
Kerry Kennedy	Interim Superintendent, SAU 6	Presented the instructional case for each option, the CAA agreement and the Bluff lease idea; gave the calendar; answered on subgroups and stipends.
James O’Shaughnessy	District counsel	Explained how the school district budget cap differs from a tax cap, the limits on amending it, and the supermajority needed to override it once adopted.
Derek Ellerkamp	Citizens’ comments — Ward 2	Twice: put the three-school option back before voters; later, sell Bluff and the Masonic Temple, and why the Tech Center does not tuition in more students.
Courtney Porter	Citizens’ comments — Ward 1, school social worker	Asked how young children could be placed at the Tech Center under the cap scenario.
Matt Bean	Citizens’ comments — Ward 1	Asked how the tax-cap petition came about and why it had not been heard of.
Sherry Williams	Citizens’ comments — Ward 1	Twice: per-pupil cost against proficiency, meal debt, default-budget tax impact, Option B salaries; later urged a unified board stand against the cap and regretted the three-school option was dropped.
Michael Demars	Citizens’ comments — Ward 3	Three turns on the administrators’ agreement, principals’ cost and benefits, and accountability for stipends outside the bargaining agreement. Introduces himself on tape only as “Michael Ward three”; the minutes name him. (On January 7 he gave his name on tape as Michael Myers; see that page.)
Amanda Barton	Citizens’ comments — Ward 2	Twice: whether the cap article can be amended; teacher retention; whether members may review the budget between meetings.
Chris Cogswell	Citizens’ comments (“Chris Ward three” on tape)	Asked why the district needs a large administrative building.
Tom Luther	Citizens’ comments — Ward 1	Three turns: preferred the three-school model; benefits that favor older teachers; the cap’s long-run effect; a CFO in place of a superintendent; subgroup outcomes.
Brian Rapp	Citizens’ comments — Ward 2	Favored the four-school model; drew out the 14-position and 8-teacher difference; said the SAU office is understaffed.
Tom Anderson	Citizens’ comments — Ward 2	Twice: ballot articles should state the taxpayer impact; close or sell the SAU building; outsource transportation and custodial work.
Mimi Rhines	Citizens’ comments — Ward 1, staff member and coach	Spoke against the tax-cap article.
Leslie Peabody	Citizens’ comments — Ward 1	Capacities, the hold-harmless grant, the special-education rate, the alternative program and the Bluff collaborative.
Michelle Beaton	Citizens’ comments — Ward 2	Asked for districts where alignment raised proficiency; raised special-education compliance; urged a year of study.
Wayne Hemingway	Citizens’ comments — Ward 1	Busing costs, staff-to-student ratio, vacant positions; a 0% tax increase.
Don Lavalette	Citizens’ comments — Ward 2	Use the district’s own expert teachers for mentoring. The minutes spell the name “Lavallette”; the tape renders it “Dialog”.

Named but not present: Paige Jarvis, Chelsea Weatherford and Jason Bonneville (agenda masthead). The dialogue file labels 154 of 398 rows “Unidentified public commenter”.

Agenda

Items as posted in “1.20.26 CSB Public Hearing (1).pdf”, with the time each was taken up and its disposition.
Taken up	Item	Agenda text / disposition
0:00:02	I. Call to order & Pledge	Agenda: “7:00 PM Call to Order Claremont School Board Meeting & Pledge of Allegiance”.
0:00:47	II. Roll call; consent agenda	All present. Agenda accepted without amendment at 0:01:12.
0:03:27	III.1 4-School Unaligned, 4-School Aligned Budget Summary	Option A (four-school aligned) $44,844,373; Option B (current configuration) $46,211,951; default budgets; the CAA, Bluff, 52 Maple Avenue and budget-cap warrant articles. Presentation to 0:30:44.
0:30:48	Public comments	Three minutes a speaker, two on later turns, unlimited turns. Speakers from 0:32:51 to the close.
1:50:37	Close of public hearing	Hawkins moved, Sprague seconded; voice vote, no opposition or abstention heard, at 1:51:04. The minutes word the motion as “understanding that in doing so, no increases can be made to the proposed budgets”.
1:51:31	IV. Other business	Candidate filing January 21–30 for moderator, treasurer, district clerk (one-year terms) and two board seats (three-year terms); election March 10, 2026.
1:52:39	Adjournment	By consent; the minutes give 8:53 p.m.

Discussion timeline

Chronological topics. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction.
Time	Topic	What was said	Flags
0:01:12	Purpose of the hearing	Whitney: to hear views “on the two proposed school budgets that were selected by the school board on January 7th. The three school budget was not advanced to this hearing.” The board will choose at its January 21 meeting.
0:05:07	What closing the hearing means	Angell: the board “may continue the public hearing to January 21st” or close it, and if they close it “no increases to the proposed budget can occur after this public hearing.”	POSITIVE
0:05:39	Options A and B	Option A $44,844,373, “a $1,664,809 change from the the current year, and the percent is 3.86.” Option B at 0:06:27: “$46,211,951. The dollar change to the current year is $3,032,387, for 7.02%.”
0:07:03	New ballot information	Cost per pupil under “RSA 189, colon 75, Roman numeral one A, which is $26,012.84”; ELA 35%, math 25%, science 29%. Default budget for Option A read at 0:07:37 as “44,000,490 $49,704” [$44,449,704].
0:08:58	Instructional case, Option A	Kennedy: alignment to raise achievement and close subgroup gaps; staffing for all tiers; fewer duplicated efforts; busing between schools so parents keep one drop-off point.
0:12:51	Revenue and tax rate, Option A	Local revenues $4,815,880; adequacy aid $16,931,007; estimated rate given on tape as “$80.80” [$18.80], with “$1.23 for state and 1757 [$17.57] for the local tax.”
0:13:44	Default budget, Option A	Defined “under RSA 40.1 with numeral nine B” [RSA 40:13, IX(b)]. From $43,179,564: debt service down $7,693.48; salaries and benefits up $876,001.63; health insurance up $1,053,316.60; school lunch $190,000; SAU services down $828,375.77; special education up $148,240; Bluff down $161,350; total “$44,449,703.53.”	POSITIVE OBSERVATION
0:17:49	Option B	Kennedy: continuity of programs and fewer transitions. Tax rate at 0:19:07: “$19.91 $1.23 for a state in 1868 [$18.68]. For local.”
0:20:00	Default budget, Option B	Salaries and related benefits “not including health insurance, but including eliminated, are $4,572,300.48. Health insurance would be $707,849.60.” At 0:20:45: “the total default budget would be $47,800,535.38.”	OBSERVATION
0:21:52	Administrators’ agreement	Cost items of the agreement with the “Claremont Administrators Association”: $0 in 2026–27; 2027–28 between $25,871.82 and $103,487.25 (per the minutes; the tape garbles the lower figure). Kennedy at 0:23:05: a COLA tied to the CPI with a 1% floor and 4% ceiling; a joint labor-management committee on compensation.
0:23:56	Bluff and 52 Maple Avenue	Sale or lease of Bluff Elementary, subject to charter schools’ right of first refusal under “RSA 194 colon 61” (0:24:42). Kennedy at 0:24:50: a nonprofit special-education collaborative could lease it. 52 Maple Avenue, the former Masonic Temple, at 0:25:54; the administration intends to sell.
0:27:09	The petitioned budget cap is read	“Shall we adopt the provisions of RSA 325 [32:5-e] and implement a budget cap whereby the School Board or Budget Committee shall not submit a recommended budget that is higher than the 2025 2026 fiscal year per pupil cost times the average daily membership in residents of the school district as of October 1st … plus the annual increase for inflation using the CPU [CPI] for the Boston, Cambridge Newton, mass.” At 0:27:57: “Posted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics as of January 1st, this requires a 3/5 majority vote.”	OBSERVATION
0:28:16	What the cap would cost	“a comparable budget of $35,700,906. This represents a $9,143,468 decrease, or 20.39%, as compared to option A.” Possible measures: eliminating the vocational center, athletics and extracurriculars; closing the Dow building and Maple Avenue; converting the Tech Center to K–1 or K–2; transportation only as required by law.	POSITIVE
0:30:12	Calendar	Kennedy: deliberative session February 7 (snow date the 9th); “we also need to determine public hearing for this tax cut [cap] for an article”, date “to be determined”; the ballot vote March 10.	OBSERVATION
0:32:51	Put the three-school option back	Ellerkamp (per the minutes): “I would like to propose we put the free [three] school option back on the table.” “The very least it should be voted on in March.” At 0:34:18: “This town cannot bear any more costs.”
0:35:29	Young children at the Tech Center?	Porter asks how “littles” could be placed at the Tech Center. Angell at 0:36:14: the items were only for costing the petition and “would have to be addressed at that time.”
0:36:36	Where the petition came from	Bean: “how did this come about and why haven’t we heard about it?” Angell at 0:36:49: “We received the tax cap petition article, I believe last week. It was filed timely. And so we received 58 Claremont residents who signed a petition … this is the first time that we’ve said anything publicly about it.”	OBSERVATION
0:38:01	Per-pupil cost and proficiency	Williams: this is the first meeting where she feels “rather helpless”; for “$26,012.84 a year per student” she could send her child elsewhere. At 0:40:49: “Salaries and benefits in option B are four times as much as an option A.” Angell at 0:41:17: default-budget tax impacts will be calculated “tomorrow”; Option B was built “as is today.”	OBSERVATION
0:42:29	Administrators’ pay	Demars: “the principal for Stevens High School. Fully burdened. Costs $185,167” (0:43:56); a two-year agreement coming out of a financial crisis is a missed chance to change costs.
0:45:22	Can the cap article be amended?	Barton asks. O’Shaughnessy at 0:46:17: “If you were to amend it, you’d be quite. Limited in, in selecting the inflation model you’re following.” At 0:46:39: “it requires a supermajority vote to override a tax cap, school district budget cap that’s in place.” Angell at 0:48:57: after closing, the board “can only make cuts”; the models include no funding of the deficit.
0:50:32	The SAU building	Cogswell: “what is the need for a large administrative office building?” Angell at 0:51:07: losing the land “would be detrimental for Stevens High School.”
0:51:40	Three-school model; benefits	Luther: “I like the three school model.” At 0:52:46: “you’ve got a gold plated package that caters to very little older teachers.”
0:55:49	Position differences between A and B	Angell: “There are 14 positions taken out of the first option, a and then there’s also an additional eight teachers, reduced”; “we had 78 vacancies.” At 0:57:32: Option B “has every single position, that the district has today.” At 0:57:51: “I think the motion was by Lauren [Loren].” Rapp at 0:58:06: Option B is “a bit inflated.”	OBSERVATION
1:00:27	Show the taxpayer the cost	Anderson: “You really need clear what that means to a taxpayer if it’s on the ballot.” Close the Dow building and use space at Stevens.
1:02:02	Staff against the cap	Rhines: “I really hope the school board comes out against this article.” Williams at 1:04:13 asks the board “to loudly voice a unified dissent.”
1:06:45	Sell the buildings; Tech Center tuition	Ellerkamp: “Sell the buildings.” Angell at 1:08:27: “The Doe [DOE] administers the tech centers.”
1:09:22	Administrators’ benefits	Demars: “we’re at 97% on the health insurance taxpayer funding”; “85% is a pretty standard”; “I’ve been told that this agreement has already been ratified.” (The board ratified it on January 7; the voters decide the cost items in March.)
1:12:29	Hold-harmless grant	Angell to Peabody: the hold-harmless amount “was just about $1.3 million” and there is “no guarantee that you’re going to receive those funds in, I think, 2728 [2027–28].” Bluff collaborative at 1:16:17: any lease “would have to be approved by the school board.”
1:19:01	Why the cap bites harder here	Angell: “the first thing that is a problem is the 2020 526 [2025–26] fiscal year for pupil cost. … I’ve cut out about $5 million out of the current year operating budget.” At 1:19:51: it “drives down artificially the pure per pupil cost.” A resident at 1:22:32: “This would be the first district that passes that kind of a tax cap.”	POSITIVE
1:24:08	Evidence for alignment	Beaton asks for results. Angell at 1:24:22 cites his last district. At 1:30:06: “If we don’t manage the budget, the taxpayers are going to manage it. For us. This tax cap is an example of that.”
1:31:13	Busing and ratios	Hemingway: “a total budget for bussing of $1,821,519, which is up 179,000”; at 1:32:58: “There’s 348.75 staff members”, “a 5.1 ratio.” Angell at 1:34:32: transportation may go out to bid.
1:36:39	Master teachers	Lavalette: “our solution is in RSA 189. Believe it’s 14 f master teachers.” (Not verified for this page.) “We have the experts.”
1:39:25	Amend the cap’s base year?	Barton: could voters amend the base year “to 2425”? Angell at 1:39:50: “If there was like a dollar amount, you could change the dollar amount”; at 1:40:12: “You cannot change the language.” At 1:41:30: “the school board asks me questions of all the time.”	OBSERVATION
1:42:27	Stipends outside the agreements	Kennedy at 1:43:03: some letters of agreement from prior administrations had numbers whose rationale “were not exactly sure.” Demars at 1:45:09: stipends outside the agreements need “accountability and transparency.” Angell at 1:48:03: a stipend report “takes me about half an hour to 45 minutes to produce.”
1:50:37	Closing the hearing	Whitney asks for a motion “with the board, understanding that tomorrow … That we will be unable to make any increases to that budget by closing this public hearing.” Sprague seconds; carried at 1:51:04.	POSITIVE

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; an Observation rests on no confirmed rule.

POSITIVE The hearing met the SB 2 calendar and presented both default budgets

In a district using the official ballot, RSA 40:13, II-a(c) requires budget hearings under RSA 32:5 to be held “on or before the third Tuesday in January”, notwithstanding any other provision of law. January 20, 2026 was the third Tuesday, as Crawford told the board on January 7. RSA 40:13, XI(a) requires the default budget to be “disclosed and presented for questions and discussion at the first budget hearing”; the business administrator walked through the default budget for each option line by line (0:13:44–0:15:58, 0:20:00–0:20:45) and cited the defining paragraph. The ballot figures now required before the budget question (cost per pupil and proficiency rates) were also shown (0:07:03). An earlier version of this page questioned the hearing date under the 25-day rule in RSA 32:5, I; that was wrong, because RSA 40:13, II-a governs SB 2 budget hearings.

Sources: RSA 40:13, II-a(c), IX(b), XI(a) (2019, 192:2, eff. July 10, 2019; text read 2026-09-25); RSA 32:5, I; RSA 671:20, II (cost per pupil and proficiency on the ballot; 2025, 281:1).

POSITIVE The effect of closing the hearing was stated twice before the board voted

RSA 32:5, II requires every purpose and amount to be “disclosed or discussed at the final hearing” and bars inserting an undisclosed amount or purpose afterwards without a further hearing. The business administrator explained at the outset that the board could continue the hearing to January 21 or close it, and that closing means “no increases to the proposed budget can occur” (0:05:07). The chair repeated it when asking for the motion (1:50:37–1:50:48), and the minutes word Hawkins’s motion on that understanding. Reductions after the hearing remain lawful under RSA 32:5, I and II.

Sources: RSA 32:5, I and II (per the project’s verified anchor catalogue; not re-read this run); approved minutes.

POSITIVE The administration costed the petitioned cap at the first public opportunity

A week after the petition arrived, the business administrator put a number on it: a comparable budget of $35,700,906, $9,143,468 or 20.39% below Option A (0:28:16), with the kinds of cuts it would take. Later he explained the mechanism: because about $5 million was cut from the current year, the 2025–26 per-pupil cost that anchors the cap is “artificially” low (1:19:01–1:19:51). Counsel explained the override supermajority (0:46:39). RSA 32:5-e computes the cap from per-pupil cost times average daily membership in residence plus inflation, and requires a three-fifths vote to exceed it, so these are the quantities voters needed.

Sources: RSA 32:5-e (2024, 353:2; 2025, 183:5); approved minutes.

OBSERVATION The cap article as read departs from the statutory question, and this was not the hearing the cap statute requires

RSA 32:5-f, IV prescribes the question: a budget no higher than “_____ dollars per pupil cost times the average daily membership in residence”, plus inflation by an index “as of October 1.” The petition as read at 0:27:09–0:27:57 names no dollar figure (it uses “the 2025 2026 fiscal year per pupil cost”) and takes the index “as of January 1st.” RSA 32:5-f, III separately requires a school-board hearing on the question “at least 15 days, but not more than 30 days, before the question is to be voted on”; for the March 10 ballot that window was February 8 to 23, so this January 20 presentation did not serve that purpose, and the interim superintendent said at 0:30:12 that its date was still to be determined. The record shows the requirement was met later: the approved minutes of February 18, 2026 record a “Public Hearing on Warrant Articles” that took up the cap article, and record counsel’s statement “that the warrant article does not follow the language mandated by law.” On amendment, the business administrator told residents only a dollar amount could change (1:39:50–1:40:12); RSA 40:13, IV(a) bars amending wording prescribed by law and IV(c) permits changing a dollar amount. The petition itself is the petitioners’, and the board must place a valid petitioned article on the warrant. The petition arrived about a week before this hearing and was disclosed here, at the board’s first public session after it arrived.

Sources: RSA 32:5-f, II, III, IV (2024, 353:2; 2025, 183:6, 7, eff. Sept. 13, 2025; text read 2026-09-25); RSA 40:13, IV(a), IV(c); 2.18.26 Approved CSB Public Hearing & Meeting Minutes.

OBSERVATION The two default budgets differ by $3.35 million, and Option B’s default exceeds Option B itself

RSA 40:13, IX(b) builds the default budget from the prior year’s operating budget, adjusted for debt service, contracts and legal obligations, reduced by one-time expenditures and by salaries and benefits of positions eliminated in the proposed budget. Both defaults started from $43,179,564. Option A’s came to $44,449,703.53 (0:15:58); Option B’s to $47,800,535.38 (0:20:45), about $1.59 million more than the $46,211,951 Option B budget it would replace. The gap sits in two lines: salaries and benefits (+$876,001.63 for A, +$4,572,300.48 for B) and health insurance (+$1,053,316.60 for A, +$707,849.60 for B, the opposite direction). Option B eliminates no positions (0:57:32), which accounts for some difference, but the hearing did not explain why B’s contracted salary increase is five times A’s while its insurance increase is lower. RSA 40:13, XI(a) requires a default budget form identifying each change by account code with reasons; no such form is in the packet folder. A resident asked the same question from the floor (0:40:49).

Sources: RSA 40:13, IX(b), XI(a); the recording at the timestamps above.

OBSERVATION The approved minutes omit the actual start time

Since August 22, 2025, RSA 91-A:2, II has required minutes to include “the start time and end time of the meeting, and name of the person who produced the minutes.” The approved minutes give the adjournment (8:53 p.m.) and the clerk’s name but only the agenda’s scheduled times for the start. This is a single missing element in otherwise detailed minutes, which name every public speaker and ward and record the mover and seconder of the one motion; the recording supplies what is missing.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025; text read 2026-09-25); approved minutes.

Appendix — source files

Official and public sources

Cablecast: School Board - Public Hearing Proposed New Budgets 1/20/25 (show 17116) the year in the title is CCTV’s error; the meeting was January 20, 2026
Drive folder: 16. CSB Public Hearing 1.20.26, 1 document (per MAP.md)
1.20.26 CSB Public Hearing (1).pdf (the agenda)
Linked from the agenda, filed with the January 7 packet: CMS and Maple Ave Capacity report; Budget for all options
Minutes: 1.20.26 Approved CSB Public Hearing Minutes
Cited for flag 4: 2.18.26 Approved CSB Public Hearing & Meeting Minutes
Not located: the presentation slides and the default budget forms (not in the packet folder).
Related pages: January 7, 2026 (models advanced to this hearing); January 21, 2026 (budget chosen); February 18, 2026 (warrant-article hearing)

Project files

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

Dialogue/17116 SchoolBoardPublicHearing012026.mp4.CSV (398 rows)
Input/Videos/17116 SchoolBoardPublicHearing012026.mp4
Input/Transcripts/17116 SchoolBoardPublicHearing012026.mp4.json
Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 110

Laws and rules cited on this page

Budget process: RSA 32:5, I and II; RSA 40:13, II-a(c), IV(a), IV(c), IX(b), XI(a) (2019, 192:2); RSA 671:20, II (2025, 281:1)
School district budget cap: RSA 32:5-e; RSA 32:5-f, II–IV (2024, 353:2; 2025, 183:6, 7)
Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025)