Claremont School Board, Budget Public Hearing (part 1 of 2) — January 3, 2018
First of two recordings of the public hearing on the fiscal 2019 (2018–19) school budget, summarized from the CCTV recording and its speaker-attributed transcript; no notice, agenda, budget handout or minutes are online. The superintendent presented a $31,148,257 budget (the board's December 20 figure) and the business administrator reconciled it to $31,455,410 with the collective bargaining agreement ratified on December 20; public testimony followed, and when the chair called a break during a heated exchange four members voted to "overrule the chair" and the hearing continued. Part 2 is Cablecast show 9548. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
Body
Claremont School Board (SAU 6), holding the public hearing on its proposed budget under RSA 32:5
Date
Wednesday, January 3, 2018 (set at the December 20, 2017 meeting)
Start time
Not stated. The chair called the hearing to order at 0:00:14 and said "We got a late start" (0:00:45). The recording ends mid-testimony at 1:05:49 and continues in part 2.
Location
Stevens High School auditorium, as proposed on December 20 (see the December 20 page); the superintendent speaks of "this auditorium" (0:05:02). No notice is online to confirm the room.
Recording
Cablecast: Part 1 of 2 SCHOOL BUDGET HEARING 1-3-18 (dialogue file runs 1:05:49). Not carried live: the chair told viewers "We are not live" because of "the weather or the ice or something" (0:00:51). CCTV's show metadata was not fetched.
Minutes
None located in the district's public shares as of September 26, 2026; the shares' year folders begin in 2022 (MAP.md section 53). On the January 31, 2018 recording (Cablecast show 9586) the board takes up "minutes from the public hearing" with a correction to one speaker's name and residence, so minutes were kept.
Board composition
Seven members: Brian Rapp (chair), Chris Irish (vice chair), Alex Herzog, Michael Petrin, Michelle Pierce, Frank Sprague, Rebecca Zullo (project roster and governance timeline). No roll call is on the recording; the members who spoke during the break dispute are not identified in the CSV.
Participants
Everyone in the record of this part. Names follow the dialogue CSV; where the CSV says Unidentified, this page says unidentified. ASR renderings are shown in code. No minutes were available to check spellings.
Name
Role
Participation
Brian Rapp
Chair (Mr. Roth, Brian)
Opened the hearing, explained the missing live broadcast, set a three-minute limit and called speakers. His rows from the break dispute onward are left Unidentified in the CSV because the diarizer merged his voice with members'.
Chris Irish, Alex Herzog, Michael Petrin, Michelle Pierce, Frank Sprague, Rebecca Zullo
Board members
None is identified by name speaking in this part. Four unnamed members voted to overrule the chair's break (0:54:21).
Middleton McGoodwin
Superintendent, SAU 6 (Middleton Goodwin, doctor McGowan)
Presented the budget PowerPoint; answered which positions would be cut.
Michael O'Neill
Director of Business and Finance, SAU 6
Walked through the handout of warrant-article totals and estimated revenues; explained the food-service line.
Jason Benware
Citizens' comments, Ward 1 (Jason Ben Ward one)
Warned of a tax increase; later questioned the superintendent's presentation and asked about contracted services. (He joined the board in March 2018.)
Joe Osgood
Citizens' comments, Ward 2
Spoke for seniors and low-income taxpayers; said 1% of the budget "should be able to be found".
Carolyn Towle
Citizens' comments (Carolyn tall)
Asked what the food-service line is. (She joined the board in March 2018.)
Unidentified
Citizens' comments; Stevens class of 1979, teaches at River Valley Community College
Asked which teaching positions would go; argued against cutting English.
Heather Irish
Citizens' comments, Ward 3; former board member
Said the board wanted to help taxpayers and the administration did not; objected to the time limit.
Matt Bean
Citizens' comments, Ward 2 (I'm at being War two; identification rated medium)
Objected to cutting the crisis counselor; his remarks set off the break dispute.
Unidentified
Citizens' comments; Stevens High School administrator, formerly a selectman "in my town"
Said administrators' cut lists answered the board's number and were not their recommendations ("What it felt like was Sophie's Choice"). See the method note on a possible name.
Andrea Wilson
Citizens' comments, Ward 1
Began at the end of this part; continues in part 2.
Unidentified
Board-table voices and audience fragments
Several short rows, including the members' motion and vote during the break dispute.
Order of business (reconstructed)
No hearing notice or agenda is posted in any district share, although a voice at the board table says the time limit "says so on the agenda" (0:52:44). This list is reconstructed from the chair's transitions on the recording. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
"I make a motion. We overrule the chair." "I'll second." (0:54:20). "Four members have voted" (0:55:01). Testimony continued. See flag 2.
Discussion timeline
Chronological, from the dialogue CSV. Each time is the start of the cited row, from the CSV's own second count. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped cell for the full entry.
Chair: "We are not live. You probably know that because you're watching this on a tape." "they're going to try to get it on a delay later tonight" (0:01:15).
McGoodwin: "A public meeting, which is the school board meeting, is very different than a public hearing." "in a public hearing, the board does seek public testimony." (0:02:18).
"They met on September 30th. That is their right, the public meeting. And they elected to arrive at a figure $1.2 million below the current fiscal year." "I believe I have a professional responsibility to say, could you would you reconsider?" (0:04:32).
"When the school building aid was eliminated eight years ago, 43 million was shifted to the property owners state." (0:08:19); teacher retirement: "$80 million was shifted to the property taxpayers." (0:08:33); adequacy aid in FY16 to FY17 "the drop was over $400,000" (0:09:45).
"Senate Bill 193, where school money, money design designed and intended for public schools will be dispersed to children attending charter schools or home schooled students or private school students." "We have over 100 children who are home schooled in the Claremont community." (0:10:58). The superintendent's description of a pending bill; not checked.
"As freshman 130 students had ten or more tardiness as freshmen, 46 had 50 or more days tardy." (0:18:58); "We can't save money by reducing administration and let things slip." (0:19:28).
"the board on December 20th elected to accept a budget of $329,000. Reduction"; "tonight our budget is $31,148,257." The board "approved and ratified the solar collective bargaining agreement. That's $307,000" (0:21:04).
"The main budget as it stands now would be a reduction of $0.03 per thousand on the tax rate. If the default budget was approved, it would be an increase of $0.24." "The default budget is larger because of the strategic compression" (same row). Later: "if this remains the budget, the increase would be $0.03 per thousand." (0:23:24).
O'Neill: "We handed out some paperwork"; "They're right by the door." (0:24:36). Operating budget last year "31 for 77247", proposed "31 for 55 for ten" [$31,455,410]: "after that meeting, the school board voted to ratify a CRACSEA CBA agreement", "307,153. So that gets added into the budget." (0:25:57).
Bus lease: "We're saving a couple hundred thousand dollars a year by transporting the kids ourselves" (0:26:58); roofing "this year 100,000" at the middle school (0:27:19).
Adequacy "12 million 341 for 91" this year and "12 million 077963" next, "a reduction of 263,000 528", driven by "the reduction of the stabilization grant"; "overall revenues are projected to decrease by 213, 528" (0:28:57).
"are there going to be teaching positions eliminated and if so, what department?" (0:36:10). McGoodwin: "four positions at Stevens High School in elementary school position" (0:36:30); "the orange that we've been squeezing is dry." (0:36:56); list includes a crisis counselor, "Director of adult education" (0:40:12).
Heather Irish: "the taxpayers are asking you a favor, and what I'm hearing is a board that wants to do that and administration that does not." (0:49:24); "I love how you always do that with somebody who doesn't agree with you, Brian." (0:52:14); "I didn't see three minute limit." (0:52:35).
Bean: "I got up here and literally told you two weeks ago that that job saves children's lives, save their lives, and you still voted to cut it." Board voices: "We gave him a bottom line and we told them not to." (0:54:00).
"Was going to have to take a break." "I make a motion. We overrule the chair." (0:54:21); "The chairman is leaving the meeting." "Four members have voted" ; "We run the meeting, not Mr. Roth [Rapp]." (0:55:01); "Four of us just voted." "Roberts rule says majority rules." (0:55:44). All these rows are Unidentified in the CSV.
"Have you started the timer yet?" (0:56:30); "I think the budget cut as they have presented it will not harm our children significantly" (0:57:14); the psychologist "is going to be supplemented by contracted services. Correct?" (0:57:42); crisis counselor: "$32,500, one tenth of a percent of the total budget." (0:59:07).
"I was a selectman in my town for six years". "none of what we gave you were recommendations. They were an answer to a request by the board to meet a certain number." (1:01:45); "What it felt like was Sophie's Choice." (1:02:06).
Wilson: "I think by not following a directive that your board gives you is, just is not a use of school." Continues in part 2.
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the state law in force on January 3, 2018. They are not findings of violation and nothing here is legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; where no verified rule applies, the flag says so and is recorded as an observation. No HIGH or MEDIUM flag was found.
OBSERVATION No hearing notice, agenda, handout or minutes are online, but the record shows minutes were kept and an agenda existed
RSA 32:5, I, as in force on this date, required notice of the budget hearing "at least 7 days in advance". RSA 91-A:2, II, in the text in force from January 1, 2018, required minutes naming the members, the "persons appearing before the public bodies", the subjects and final decisions, open to inspection within five business days. None of these documents, nor the warrant-article handout the business administrator distributed (0:24:10), is in the district's public shares, which begin in 2022; that is a limit of what the district posts online, not evidence they did not exist. A voice at the board table says the time limit "says so on the agenda" (0:52:44), and on January 31, 2018 the board took up "minutes from the public hearing" with a correction naming a speaker "Patty Harrison of Wethersfield, Vermont" (Cablecast show 9586). The hearing was also not carried live (0:00:51); no statute in force required a live broadcast, and the chair said a delayed airing was planned. Graded an observation under the project's rule for missing records.
OBSERVATION Four members overruled the chair's break during public testimony, and the time limit was disputed; the record does not show who voted or under what rule
The chair set a three-minute limit (0:31:22). When a former member objected to being timed, one board voice answered "It says so on the agenda" and another "We do not agree to his time" (0:52:44, 0:52:52). During the next speaker's remarks the chair moved to take a break; a member moved "We overrule the chair", another seconded, and voices then said "Four members have voted" and "The chairman is leaving the meeting" (0:54:21, 0:55:01); testimony continued, and the chair is presiding again in part 2. Every board voice in this passage is Unidentified in the CSV, so the recording cannot say which four members voted or whether the chair left the room. No New Hampshire statute located for this page governs a chair's power to call a recess at a budget hearing, and the board's own rules of procedure (a voice invokes "Roberts rule") are not online, so no rule is cited. The practical point for a reader: the hearing's record depends on the minutes to say who presided, who voted to overrule and for how long the chair was absent, and those minutes are not online.
Sources: no statutory rule located; the recording only. Context: RSA 32:5, I (2017 codification) (the governing body holds the hearing).
OBSERVATION The default budget was disclosed only as a tax effect on the recording
RSA 40:13, XI(a), in the text in force on this date, provided: "The default budget shall be disclosed at the first budget hearing held pursuant to RSA 32:5 or RSA 197:6." (The wording "presented for questions and discussion" came later, in 2018.) The superintendent said approval of the default "would be an increase of $0.24" and that "The default budget is larger" than the proposed budget (0:22:26). The default's dollar amount is not spoken on the recording; it may have been on the handout, which is not online. A default larger than the proposed budget is consistent with the statute's definition in IX(b) (prior-year appropriations adjusted for contracts and obligations, less one-time expenditures), since the proposed budget was about $21,837 below the prior year's by the business administrator's figures (0:25:57). Whether disclosure in tax-rate terms and a handout satisfied XI(a) depends on documents that are not online.
POSITIVE Timely hearing, printed figures for the public, and figures that reconcile
RSA 40:13, II-a, as then in force, required budget hearings "on or before the third Tuesday in January", January 16 in 2018; this hearing was January 3, and the deliberative session (announced for February 7 in part 2) was more than 25 days later, as RSA 32:5, I required. The superintendent explained that at a hearing "the board does seek public testimony" (0:02:18), and the business administrator distributed printed warrant-article totals and revenue estimates at the door (0:24:36). His spoken figures reconcile: $31,148,257 plus the $307,153 contract is $31,455,410, which is $21,837 below the prior year's $31,477,247 (0:25:57); and the adequacy change from $12,341,491 to $12,077,963 is the $263,528 he gave, offset by $50,000 more tuition for the $213,528 net revenue loss (0:28:28, 0:28:57). Those amounts are read from the transcript's garbled number strings and bracketed where restated.
Part 2: Cablecast show 9548 page. The regular board meeting that followed is Cablecast shows 9549 and 9550; the January 31, 2018 minutes approval is show 9586.
No hearing notice, agenda, warrant-article handout, default budget form or minutes for this meeting is in the district's public Drive shares, whose year folders begin in 2022 (MAP.md section 53, checked 9/26/26).