Participants
Everyone the recording shows taking part. Names follow the project's dialogue file; no minutes exist online to check spellings against, so spellings of non-members are as the transcription heard them and are marked where unverified. Members are listed first.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Brian Rapp | Chair | Presided. Held that the board's January 21 directive was zero tax impact "for the operating budget only" and argued the administration had cut more than asked; proposed deleting the technology warrant and putting $89,200 back into the budget; called the votes; invited public comment; announced the filing period. |
| Chris Irish | Vice Chair | Defended the reduced budget ("This is a good budget. It hurts.") and opposed putting technology on a warrant article ("Don't make the voters do our job."). Seconded the $90,000 restoration. Asked when the default budget would be known. Closed with remarks crediting the administration. |
| Patrick Adrian | Board member | Worried that supply cuts would leave a deficit or a larger increase next year; cited a neighboring district's deficit; moved in substance to drop the technology warrant article and put the $89,200 into the operating budget; spoke late in the meeting against calling art, music and physical education "specials". |
| Alex Herzog | Board member | Asked for the figures behind the "above and beyond" cuts; said "I think I would like to restore some money back into the budget."; made the motion to restore $90,000 at 1:02:52; questioned the Bluff art teacher about her day. |
| Michelle Pierce | Board member | Identified with medium-high confidence (the chair recognizes Michelle. before her question at 0:32:40). Asked what reinstating the teachers had cost; confirmed with the superintendent that no teaching positions or specials were being cut. |
| Unidentified board member(s) | Board member | A few substantive remarks by a member the dialogue file leaves unidentified, including the call for a report back on where the restored money goes (at 1:01:06). The attribution report names Frank Sprague as the leading hypothesis; that is not established, and this page does not name him. |
| Frank Sprague; Brent Ferland | Board members | Attendance not established. The roll call is inaudible and no speech is attributed to either by name. |
| Middleton McGoodwin | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Introduced the revised budget as a response to the board's January 21 directive; warned it could not be repeated ("please don't think this will be an annual event."); objected that a placeholder in the budget would be "like padding the budget"; defended the earlier staffing proposals. Rendered Doctor Goodman and Doctor Goodwin in the transcript. |
| Michael O'Neill | Business Administrator, SAU 6 | Presented the warrant totals, the revenue page and the default budget figure; drafted the warrant for signature that night. Rendered Michael Neil once. |
| Cory LeClair | Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6 | Described the line-by-line reductions and projected fixed-cost pressure for the following year. Rendered Corey Clear. |
| Jenny Desert | Public commenter; art teacher, Bluff Elementary School | Read a prepared statement on what the specials teachers do and against reducing her position to 0.8; answered Herzog's questions; returned after the motion to adjourn was made to speak on teacher retention. Called Mrs. D by others. Spelling as the transcription heard it (unverified). |
| Nick | Public commenter, Ward 3 | Spoke for the arts and questioned folding the technology warrant article into the operating budget. Surname not said on the recording. |
| Rachel Nagler | Public commenter; parent of a kindergartner | Spoke about the art teacher's effect on her daughter. Spelling as heard (unverified). |
| Unidentified parent | Member of the public | A brief remark at 1:30:02 about a daughter missing art because of a delayed start. |
| Mary (recording secretary) | Staff | Referred to by name at 1:03:23; not heard speaking. The project roster identifies the clerk and recording secretary of this period as Mary Woodman; her surname is not said on this recording. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda for this meeting is posted in any district share, so this list is reconstructed from the chair's transitions on the recording. The chair describes the session as a budget discussion with a single agenda item. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:02:11 | Call to order, pledge, roll call | Called to order by the chair; two Here. responses are audible and the rest of the roll is not. |
| 0:03:03 | Budget discussion (the only agenda item) | Chair: "We are only agenda item is budget discussion." Presentation by the superintendent and business administrator, then board discussion. |
| 1:02:52 | Motion: restore $90,000 and drop the technology warrant article | Herzog moved; Irish seconded; passed by voice vote at 1:03:13 with no tally audible. Operating budget stated at $31,283,006. |
| 1:04:43 | Motion: board support for warrant articles | Contracts (maintenance and custodial, secretaries), security upgrades and roofing improvements, taken together. So moved. by an unidentified member; no second audible; voice vote. |
| 1:05:02 | Default budget figure | Stated by the business administrator in answer to a member's question. See flags 1 and 2. |
| 1:05:31 | Public comment | Three named speakers and one brief unidentified remark. |
| 1:22:52 | Motion to adjourn (first) | Made and answered Sure.; the art teacher then returned to the microphone and discussion continued. |
| 1:31:42 | Warrant signing; filing period | Business administrator asked members to sign the drafted warrant before leaving; chair announced that filing opens the next day for three seats. |
| 1:31:53 | Adjournment | Chair moved; seconded; voice vote. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Times are the start of the cited exchange, taken from the CSV's own second count. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell for the full entry.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:02:11 | Call to order | Pledge, then a roll call of which only two Here. responses are audible. The chair: "If anyone was going to speak, I just ask that you wait till after the budget presentation." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:03:32 | Superintendent: the January 21 directive | "it was made very clear that the board will not consider reductions to teaching staff or programs." Taking personnel off the table meant "we had a tentative figure of an additional $366,000 of reductions." The January 21 work session itself is not in the recorded corpus. | |
| 0:05:45 | Revised operating budget | O'Neill: "So we were at a $92,000 increase at the last meeting." "Now, that shows a $242,239 decrease." The FY18 general fund operating budget is "31,000,001 93006" [$31,193,006], including the warrant articles transcribed as SRA and CAA. The only added warrant article is technology equipment "for 892" [$89,200]. | |
| 0:08:55 | Revenue page | "So we are still losing the $212,000 stabilization piece." O'Neill urged free and reduced lunch sign-ups because each unregistered eligible student "costs us $1,700". | OBSERVATION |
| 0:10:37 | Adrian: are the cuts too deep? | Adrian: "I wasn't expecting that we'd be trying to make this much reductions" and feared "creating a huge deficit to pay off". LeClair: "I'm not as concerned, Patrick, about this budget proposal" as about "where we could potentially sit next year at this time." | |
| 0:14:56 | Superintendent: not repeatable | Budget growth has averaged under 2% over five years; "please don't think this will be an annual event." and "it would be impossible to do this again unless we can accept that there be major program changes." | |
| 0:17:31 | What was the directive? | Rapp: the cuts included all warrants "except for the $89,200 technology warrant", whereas "We wanted the we wanted the, the tax impact to be zero for the operating budget only." Irish: Not all. Rapp: "Well, that's that's what the board decided." | |
| 0:21:05 | Is it a good budget? | Rapp: "I disagree, Chris, I don't think that they're comfortable with it." Irish: "Tell that to the people that can't pay their taxes this year." and "This is a good budget. It hurts." Rapp: "It's not a good budget." | |
| 0:23:56 | Technology on a warrant article | Irish: "I can't support putting it on a Warren article for one reason or one reason only." "Don't make the voters do our job." Rapp: "It's not making them. It's allowing them to." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:25:58 | Herzog: restore some money | "I think our concerns with cutting too deep that worries me some." "I think I would like to restore some money back into the budget." | |
| 0:31:29 | Positions reinstated | The superintendent lists the reinstated middle school athletic director, library media specialist, Bluff specialists and high school position; Pierce asked the cost of reinstating the teachers: "It was $366,000." Taking $92,000 and cutting another $125,000 without touching teaching staff was "That's impossible" as transcribed in context. | |
| 0:34:43 | How much room to add back? | O'Neill: "So you'd be looking at 220,000 that you would have had to cut 220,000. We cut 334, which is the 114 number again." | |
| 0:36:44 | A placeholder in the budget? | Superintendent: the district "Wouldn't put $89,000 in the budget as a placeholder if the warrant article failed"; to do so "is like padding the budget". Irish described wording a warrant article as already included in the operating budget: "If the one article fails, it comes out of the budget." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:38:12 | Next year's outlook | LeClair: "we'll end up with maybe somewhere between 500,000 and $1 million" to pass on or cut. Superintendent: "that's why we were in Concord today to try to stop this hemorrhaging." Rapp: "the default budget next year is going to be based off of this year's budget." | |
| 0:46:08 | Adrian: a neighboring district's deficit | Adrian recalled a nearby district that ended "over $700,000 in deficit". The superintendent: "It was a human error that caused the district to get into a very serious situation." | |
| 0:50:19 | Faith in the figures | Irish: "if I thought for one second I couldn't trust their figures, we'd have an issue." Rapp: "he doesn't think it's that smart." and "They did more than then the board agreed to do on Saturday." | |
| 0:54:18 | Delete the technology warrant? | Rapp: "Could we delete the technology warrant and put 89,200 back into the budget?" | OBSERVATION |
| 0:55:19 | Superintendent: the orange is dry | "I would like to back the whole process up and get into it during October." "we've got to a point where the orange is dry and we're squeezing it and nothing's coming out." | |
| 0:59:41 | Compromise | Rapp: "We'd like to be able to put about 90,000 back in the budget." Herzog: "I think it's a great compromise." O'Neill on where restored money would go: "we still have the ability to move the money around." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:02:52 | Motion to restore $90,000 | Herzog: "We restore 90,000 cuts back to the school administration to, distribute into their lines as they see fit." Irish: "I'll second that." Irish confirmed "We're taking the technology Warren article off though, right?" Voice vote at 1:03:13; no count is audible. New figure read at 1:03:26: 31 million, 283, 006. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:03:43 | Forms, posting and the warrant articles | O'Neill: "we preparing the forms that we're supposed to get up on Monday." and "But we know they've got to be posted by the last day." Motion at 1:04:43 to support the contracts, security upgrades and roofing articles together; So moved.; voice vote. | POSITIVE |
| 1:05:02 | Default budget | Irish: "Mike, just out of curiosity, when will we know the default budget?" O'Neill: "Was $14,282 higher than the proposed budget. Now it's going to be $104,282 higher. So the default budgets 31,000,207 288." [$31,207,288] | MEDIUM MEDIUM |
| 1:05:47 | Public comment: Jenny Desert | "My name is Jenny Desert. I'm the art teacher at Bluff Elementary School." "by taking this position and turning it into a .82 percent position. You'll be taking away a lot more than just a few hours of my day." Pierce then confirmed with the superintendent: "No teaching personnel." | POSITIVE |
| 1:13:43 | Public comment: Nick, Ward 3 | "I would encourage you now and in the future to not sacrifice anything to do with the arts to save a buck." On the warrant article: "did it ever need to be a warrant article to begin with?" and "You don't really have that much of a say." O'Neill: "at least half of it will" go to technology. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:17:02 | Adrian on the whole child | "every time I hear the words art and music and P and put it called specials, it makes my heart cry." Superintendent: "The issue is declining enrollment and declining funding." | |
| 1:22:52 | Motion to adjourn, then more comment | After Motion to adjourn., the art teacher returned: "I'm not looking for a point eight position, I'm looking for a full time position." Rapp: "His job is to do what we ask him to do." | |
| 1:27:17 | Public comment: Rachel Nagler | "I have a daughter in kindergarten." "anything you can ever do to keep those positions full time" | POSITIVE |
| 1:30:13 | Irish: the board's role | "our one sole purpose in life is to create and craft a budget." "I wanted us to make the hard decisions because that's what we're supposed to do." | |
| 1:31:42 | Warrant signed; filing opens | O'Neill: "I just drafted the Warren. I just need you guys to sign it before you leave." Rapp: "Filing begins tomorrow." "Two of them are three years. One is one year." | POSITIVE |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the law in force on January 24, 2017. Several provisions cited below were later amended, and each flag cites the text as it then read. They are not findings of violation, and nothing here is legal advice. Where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. Five flags follow, ordered by severity.
MEDIUM The default budget figure first appears on the record here, thirteen days after the budget hearing that the statute says must disclose it
At 1:05:02 the vice chair asked "Mike, just out of curiosity, when will we know the default budget?" and the business administrator gave the figure, $31,207,288 (1:05:14). In 2017 RSA 40:13, XI(a) read: "The default budget shall be disclosed at the first budget hearing held pursuant to RSA 32:5 or RSA 197:6." The district's budget hearing was held on Wednesday, January 11, 2017 (Cablecast show 8873, which the superintendent opened by describing the session as a public hearing), inside the RSA 40:13, II-a(c) deadline of the third Tuesday in January (January 17). On that recording, about 81 minutes in, the superintendent says the default budget is yet to be announced (the transcript reads the fall budget to be announced), and no other mention of a default figure is found in that hearing's transcript.
Mitigation, and why this is not graded higher: a written default budget form may have been distributed at the hearing without being read aloud, and the business administrator's was in his answer at 1:05:14 implies a figure existed before this meeting. The hearing handouts and the district's MS-DSB form are not available online. A reviewer should check the posted default budget form and the January 11 minutes, if the district still holds them.
Sources: RSA 40:13, XI(a) and II-a(c) (2017 codification; source note ends 2014, 190, eff. Sept. 9, 2014): default budget disclosed at the first budget hearing; hearings on or before the third Tuesday in January.
MEDIUM The default budget comparison given to the board does not reconcile: after the $90,000 restoration the default is lower than the proposed budget, not higher
The business administrator said at 1:05:14: "Was $14,282 higher than the proposed budget. Now it's going to be $104,282 higher. So the default budgets 31,000,207 288." The first half checks: $31,207,288 less the presented operating budget of $31,193,006 is $14,282. The second half does not. The board had just raised the operating budget by $90,000 to $31,283,006 (1:03:26), which puts the default budget $75,718 below the proposed budget. The $90,000 appears to have been added to the gap instead of subtracted.
The direction matters. The superintendent had warned at the January 18 meeting that a default budget below the proposed one would endanger the collective bargaining agreements, and the chair argued at 0:41:17 that next year's default would be built from this year's budget. The board was told the default sat comfortably above its proposal when, on the figures stated, it did not. No member questioned the statement ("Awesome. Okay. Awesome job."). No statute is engaged by a spoken arithmetic slip, and the error may have been caught when the forms were prepared; the posted budget and default budget forms are not available online to check. Graded MEDIUM as a control weakness in the figures presented to the board.
Sources: the recording at 1:01:58, 1:03:26 and 1:05:14; RSA 40:13, XI(a) (2017 codification) for the default budget's role; the January 18, 2017 page for the superintendent's warning.
OBSERVATION A separate technology warrant article was dropped and its $89,200 folded into the operating budget for the administration to distribute, removing a separate voter choice
The administration had placed technology equipment of $89,200 on its own warrant article after cutting it from the operating budget (0:08:05). The board voted at 1:02:52 to "restore 90,000 cuts back to the school administration to, distribute into their lines as they see fit" and to take the technology article off. The business administrator said afterwards that "at least half of it will" go to technology. The Ward 3 commenter put the consequence plainly: "did it ever need to be a warrant article to begin with?" and "You don't really have that much of a say." A member asked for a report back on where the money goes (1:01:06).
This was within the board's authority. RSA 32:5, I (2017 codification) directs the governing body, "after the conclusion of public testimony", to "finalize the budget to be submitted to the legislative body", and ¶II's bar runs against inserting amounts or purposes not disclosed at the hearing. The operating budget stated at the January 11 hearing carried an increase of roughly $850,000, so the $31,283,006 finalized here sits well below it. The point for a reader is transparency, not legality: voters at the deliberative session and the polls saw one operating budget line rather than a separate technology question, and the members themselves disagreed on the record about whether that was right (Irish, 0:23:56; Rapp, 0:24:51).
Sources: RSA 32:5, I and II (2017 codification; source note ends 2014, 190:7, eff. Sept. 9, 2014): finalize after public testimony; no insertion of undisclosed amounts.
OBSERVATION Attendance, vote counts and seconds cannot be recovered from the recording, and no minutes are online to supply them
Only two Here. responses to the roll call are audible (0:02:55), so whether Frank Sprague and Brent Ferland attended is unknown. Both money votes were voice votes with no count audible: the $90,000 restoration (1:03:13) and the warrant-article support motion (1:04:56), for which only So moved. is heard and no second. In 2017 RSA 91-A:2, II required minutes that "shall include the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions", open to inspection "not more than 5 business days after the meeting". It did not yet require naming movers and seconders (that clause dates from 2018, 244:1, eff. January 1, 2019).
MAP.md records that neither district Drive share holds anything before July 2022 (checked 9/26/26). That is a limit of what the district posts online, not by itself evidence that minutes were never kept: the recording shows the recording secretary taking down the budget figure (1:03:23). The limb of the project's missing-records rule applied is the online-availability observation, because the recording shows minutes being taken. The January 21 Saturday work session at which the board set the directive discussed here is not in the recorded corpus at all.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2016 codification; source note ends 2016, 29:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2017, so the text for all of 2017): minutes contents and five-business-day availability; Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 26.
POSITIVE The public was heard after the budget vote, and the budget and warrant were finished ahead of the statutory posting date
The chair told the audience at the outset that they would be heard after the presentation and, after the votes, invited "Anybody that didn't have your questions answered. Would you like to come and speak?" Three named members of the public spoke, members questioned them, and the art teacher was allowed back to the microphone after a motion to adjourn had been made. No statute required a public comment period in 2017: RSA 189:74 was enacted by 2022, 333:1, effective September 6, 2022.
The warrant was drafted and put out for signature the same night (1:31:42), with the business administrator noting the posting deadline (1:04:17). In 2017 RSA 40:13, II-a(d) read: "Warrants under RSA 39:5 and RSA 197:7 and budgets shall be posted and copies available to the general public on or before the last Monday in January", which was January 30, 2017. Whether and when the documents were actually posted cannot be checked from here.
Sources: RSA 189:74 (source: 2022, 333:1, eff. Sept. 6, 2022): school board public comment period, not in force in 2017; RSA 40:13, II-a(d) (2017 codification): posting by the last Monday in January.
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 8899, "SCHOOL BOARD BUDGET SESSION 1-24-17": Claremont Community TV, CLAREMONT SCHOOLS gallery. Every timestamp on this page links into this recording.
- Cablecast show 8873, "SCHOOL BOARD BUDGET SESSION 1-11-17" (the January 11, 2017 budget hearing), cited in flags 1 and 3; not deep-linked from this page.
- No Drive material: neither the Claremont nor the SAU 6 share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (MAP.md, checked 9/26/26). No agenda, handout, budget form, default budget form, warrant or minutes for this meeting were located.
- Related pages: joint City Council and School Board meeting, January 24, 2017 (earlier the same evening) and January 18, 2017.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/8899 SchoolBoard012417.mp4.CSV (511 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/8899 SchoolBoard012417.mp4Input/Transcripts/8899 SchoolBoard012417.mp4.jsonScripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/8899 SchoolBoard012417.mp4.mdInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 26
Laws and rules cited on this page
- New Hampshire statutes, as in force on January 24, 2017. RSA 40:13, II-a(c), II-a(d) and XI(a) (official ballot budget calendar and default budget disclosure; 2017 codification, unamended between September 2014 and August 2018). RSA 32:5, I and II (budget hearing and finalization; 2017 codification). RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes; 2016 codification, the text in force for calendar 2017). RSA 189:74 (public comment period), cited only to show it post-dates this meeting.