Claremont School Board, Budget Public Hearing (part 2 of 2) — January 3, 2018
Second 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. It carries the rest of the public testimony: residents and staff defended the adult education director, the crisis counselor and teaching positions, the vice chair and a member defended the board's $31,148,257 bottom line, the superintendent said he had asked the board to reconsider its October directive, and the business administrator explained how fund balance had been returned or retained. Part 1 is Cablecast show 9547. 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 on either recording; the chair apologized for "a late start" at the opening of part 1. This part begins mid-testimony at 0:00:00 and ends at 0:58:08 as the chair calls a break before the regular board meeting (timeline, 0:58:01). No formal close of the hearing is on the recording.
Location
Stevens High School auditorium, as proposed on December 20 (see the December 20 page); a speaker here says she teaches "here at Stevens High School" (0:13:38) and the superintendent says the deliberative session will be "Here in this" room (0:57:55). No notice is online to confirm the room.
None located in the district's public shares as of September 26, 2026; the shares' year folders begin in 2022 (MAP.md section 54). On the January 31, 2018 recording (Cablecast show 9586) the new chair presents "minutes from the public hearing" for approval with one correction to a 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 either recording; only Rapp, Irish and Zullo are identified speaking in this part.
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, so spellings of residents' names are as transcribed.
Name
Role
Participation
Brian Rapp
Chair
Called speakers, allowed second turns once all had spoken, answered on the budget meetings and the health-trust refund, announced the deliberative session and called the closing break. Several of his rows were moved into his name from another voice's cluster in the CSV.
Chris Irish
Vice Chair (Chris)
Answered John Young for the four members who supported the December 20 budget; said the chair had not attended the members' budget work; cited about $2.2 million returned over four years. Attribution rated medium-high.
Rebecca Zullo
Board member (Rebecca)
Explained why she did not support the "1.7 million increase" and argued lines were overestimated. Attribution rated medium-low in the attribution report; rests on other speakers addressing "Rebecca".
Alex Herzog, Michael Petrin, Michelle Pierce, Frank Sprague
Board members
Not identified speaking in this part; attendance is not recorded on the tape.
Middleton McGoodwin
Superintendent, SAU 6 (Doctor Goodwin)
Answered Joe on whether the board and administration had worked the budget together.
Michael O'Neill
Business Administrator, SAU 6 (Mr. McNeil)
Answered on roof and paving money and on fund balance returned and retained.
Andrea Wilson
Citizens' comments, Ward 1
Continues from part 1: criticized the chair for cutting speakers off; praised teachers; asked about English positions at Stevens.
Debbie Laffan
Citizens' comments, Ward 1
Opposed cutting the Claremont Adult Learning Center director.
Unidentified
Citizens' comments, Ward 1; Stevens High School counselor (name not audible)
Opposed cutting the crisis counselor.
Jeremy Zullo
Citizens' comments, Ward 3 (Jeremy Zulu; spelling assumed in the CSV)
Asked about roof and paving money; accused the superintendent of trying "to scare people".
Larissa Cahill
Citizens' comments, Ward 2; Stevens teacher and parent
Spoke against cutting German and staff.
Marion Lovett
Citizens' comments; former student representative
Cited online school ratings; opposed the crisis counselor cut.
John Young
Citizens' comments
Asked why the board had not supported the administration's first budget.
David Putnam
Citizens' comments, Ward 2; former board chair
Advised taking breaks by consensus; asked how fund balance works and who oversees it.
Ellie Filene
Citizens' comments, Ward 2; Maple Avenue teacher (spelling as transcribed)
Said she was "appalled at the behavior by some of these adults"; invited members into the schools.
Nick
Citizens' comments, Ward 3 (first name only)
Objected that the hearing was not televised live.
Jesse Burrill
Citizens' comments, Ward 3; "not a registered voter" (Jessie Burrill)
Renewed an invitation for members to shadow Stevens students.
Richard Seaman
Citizens' comments, Ward 3; former board member
Asked what the budget's objective was; asked Zullo to list her savings in a working session.
Joe
Citizens' comments (first name only in the CSV)
Asked whether board and administration had gone through the budget line by line together; suggested quarterly line-item reports. The attribution report thinks he is probably Joe Osgood of Ward 2, who spoke in part 1; not confirmed.
Carolyn Towle
Citizens' comments, Ward 1 (Carolyn Tull)
Asked for a public spreadsheet of the savings members proposed. (She joined the board in March 2018.)
Derek Ferland
Citizens' comments, Ward 3 (name as transcribed; the attribution report flags a possible garble)
Asked how much of the returned money was a one-time health refund; questioned whether $1.7 million could come from about $8 million of discretionary spending.
Unidentified
Citizens' comments; works in adult education
Spoke for the adult education director and the counselor positions (0:55:29). She describes herself as a student "in the 70s" who has worked at Claremont Adult Ed, which fits the unnamed Stevens class of 1979 speaker in part 1, but the CSV does not link them.
Order of business (reconstructed)
No hearing notice or agenda is posted in any district share, although a voice at the board table in part 1 says the time limit "says so on the agenda". This list is reconstructed from the chair's transitions on the recording and continues part 1. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
Public testimony on the FY2019 budget (continued from part 1)
Andrea Wilson finishing. The chair then announced that "after everyone's had a chance to speak once people will be allowed to speak again." (0:07:43). Sixteen public speakers are on this part.
Announced for "7th February" at 6:00 (0:57:50); the transcript here is fragmentary. The deliberative-session recording in the project (Cablecast show 9602) is titled "2-8".
Recording ends. No motion or statement closing the hearing is on the tape; the regular meeting is Cablecast shows 9549 and 9550.
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.
Wilson: "Is Brian, you cutting people off? You interrupting?" "We did not put you as the chair. You have no other authority than anybody else sitting there." (0:01:01).
Laffan: "cutting the director's position will not only hurt the students of Stevens High School, but that of many students throughout Sullivan County." Amy "has helped 55 students associated with Stevens High School graduate from the Claremont Adult High School, or recover classes" (0:05:04).
J. Zullo asked about the $100,000 roof article. O'Neill: "this is the fourth year in a row, we put a warrant article out there for $100,000" (0:11:34); the $70,000 paving was "money that we were able to save through last year's budget" (0:12:03). Zullo: "You're trying to scare people into cutting the budget" (0:12:30).
Cahill: "you give a directive and it's an important directive, but you also have to own the consequences of that directive." (0:14:26); "We're going to cut German." (0:16:46).
Lovett cited online ratings: "Claremont is rated 130th out of 153 New Hampshire school districts" (0:18:32) and asked, of the crisis counselor, "who's the kid going to go to when they're getting bullied" (0:19:23).
Young: "If you didn't want these cuts, why didn't you support the first budget". Irish: "The four of us that supported that budget on the 20th firmly believe out of a $31 million budget, there's way more than 328,000 we can save in other places without touching a teacher" (0:21:38); "We're giving them a bottom line, which as a board is the only authority we have." (0:21:59).
Zullo: "I personally did not support the 1.7 million increase"; "Maybe we don't make it so that there's so much money at the end of the year that we need to spend it down and shuffle it around." (0:24:00).
Putnam: "If we wished for a break in the meeting, that I would get a consensus from the whole board." Leftover money "we returned them as a fund balance" and paving went "on the budget as a line item" (0:26:21).
Nick: "I think a large mistake happened tonight. As far as this meeting not being televised on public access." (0:31:37); "it would have been proper to notify people that that wasn't going to happen."
Seaman: "I don't understand whether or not this budget is driven by savings" (0:34:40). To Zullo: "I have looked through the budgets here many, many times and was not able to identify the kind of numbers that you were throwing out there. I think we ought to have a working session." (0:36:08).
Joe: "is this a boxing match where we come in here, we fight, we go back to our corners". McGoodwin: "gave a directive in early October. I felt it was mistake and I asked them to reconsider." (0:38:32); "The board has for the past couple of years, had the desire to meet alone, without administration and do the work." (0:38:59); the "$1.2 million reduction below the current fiscal year on September 30th, 2017, when they met in the community center in the afternoon." (0:39:26).
Chair: "there really wasn't anything offered at these meetings." A board voice (CSV: Unidentified, merging two speakers): "that is not even close to true" (0:40:25). Irish: "Mr. rap was not there. So he has no idea what this board has been doing when we've met together because he has not been there." (0:40:49); "We were not given a budget until December." (0:41:44).
Irish: "roughly $2.2 million. So we've averaged $500,000 a year being returned to the general fund, not to the taxpayers" ; "We will probably cut 300 zero zero and still return $200,000 at the end of the year." (0:43:22).
O'Neill: the district voted "to allow a carryover of 2.5% of fund balance under RSA 198 20", "about $600,000"; 2014's "$1.8 million surplus, mainly driven by health insurance savings"; "in 2015 is we returned 584, 480, and then in 2016 we returned 326" (0:47:56); retained money used "to offset taxes in future years" (0:48:35).
Chair: the health trust money came back "because there was an order from the Supreme Court". Ferland: "that doesn't to me that doesn't speak to a systemic problem of over budgeting." (0:52:38); O'Neill: "Most of that was health care." (0:52:20).
Ferland: "that only leaves roughly 8 million as discretionary"; "that's roughly a 25% cut to what's left in the budget". "Please, for the for the sake of the community, I would encourage you to find a way to sit down and work that out" (0:54:16).
An adult-education worker: "I wanted to go to bat for Merriam Level [Marion Lovett] and for Debbie Lathan [Laffan] and the school counselor". Adult ed students include those attending "because it is a requirement of their probation" (0:56:20).
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 was posted
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", a brief description of the subjects and final decisions, open to inspection within five business days. None of these documents 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. The record points the other way: a voice at the board table in part 1 says the three-minute limit "says so on the agenda", 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" who had been listed as from Ward 3 (Cablecast show 9586). No speaker on this part gives that name. The hearing also went untelevised live, which a resident protested (0:31:37); no statute in force required a live broadcast. Graded an observation under the project's rule for missing records. RSA 91-A:2, II's mover-and-seconder sentence was not yet law (it took effect January 1, 2019), and no motion is on this part.
OBSERVATION Fund balance was explained under the wrong statute, and the retained amount is measured differently in the law
Asked how leftover money is handled, the business administrator said the district voted "to allow a carryover of 2.5% of fund balance under RSA 198 20" (0:47:29). The provision in force that lets a school district retain year-end money is RSA 198:4-b, II: the legislative body may authorize retention of "year-end unassigned general funds in an amount not to exceed, in any fiscal year, 2.5 percent of the current fiscal year's net assessment", for "emergency expenditures and overexpenditures under RSA 32:11" or "to reduce the tax rate". The cap is a percentage of the net assessment, not of fund balance, and the statute sets no approval by state agencies; the administrator's description of using retained money only "to offset taxes in future years" (0:48:35) matches the second permitted use. His figures (about $600,000 retained after a $1.8 million surplus; $584,480 returned for 2015 and about $326,000 for 2016) and the vice chair's "roughly $2.2 million" over four years (0:42:36) are the speakers' own and could not be checked against audited statements. Whether RSA 198:20 (a different section) was what he meant, or a slip, the recording cannot say.
OBSERVATION Members describe budget work done together away from the chair and the administration
The superintendent said "The board has for the past couple of years, had the desire to meet alone, without administration and do the work" (0:38:59), and placed the $1.2 million directive at a meeting on September 30, 2017 "in the community center in the afternoon" (0:39:26); in part 1 he calls that session "the public meeting". The vice chair then said of the chair, "he has no idea what this board has been doing when we've met together because he has not been there" (0:40:49), and spoke for "The four of us" (0:21:38). Four is a quorum of this seven-member board. Under RSA 91-A:2, I, as then in force, the convening of a quorum "for the purpose of discussing or acting upon" a matter within the board's jurisdiction is a meeting, which needs notice and minutes; and RSA 91-A:2-a requires deliberation only in meetings, and bars communications outside a meeting used "to circumvent the spirit and purpose" of the chapter. The recording does not say whether these sessions were noticed, how many members attended, or whether they were the board's own budget work sessions held in public. Other recordings answer much of this. The November 29, 2017 budget study session, held without administrators, is itself a televised public meeting with all seven members (November 29 page), and on December 20 the assistant superintendent said she had watched "the tape" of the members' Saturday follow-up session (December 20 page); the superintendent calls the September 30 session "the public meeting" in part 1. So the sessions the vice chair describes appear to have been noticed, recorded board meetings that the chair did not attend. The notices and minutes of fall 2017, which are not online, would settle it.
POSITIVE Every member of the public who wished to speak was heard, some twice, well inside the statutory calendar
Sixteen public speakers are on this part alone, and the chair let people speak again once all had spoken once (0:07:43, 0:44:36). Board members and staff answered direct questions from residents, including a question about fund balance that drew specific figures (0:47:29). RSA 40:13, II-a, as then in force, required budget hearings "on or before the third Tuesday in January", January 16 in 2018; the hearing was January 3. RSA 32:5, I required the hearing "not later than 25 days before" the annual meeting; the deliberative session announced here for February 7 (held, per its Cablecast title, on February 8) was at least 35 days later.
Part 1: Cablecast show 9547 page. The regular board meeting that followed is Cablecast shows 9549 and 9550; the January 31, 2018 minutes approval is show 9586; the deliberative session is show 9602.
No hearing notice, agenda, budget 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 54, checked 9/26/26).