Claremont School Board, Budget Public Hearing — January 2, 2019
Public hearing on the fiscal 2020 (2019–20) school budget, followed by a short board session, summarized from the CCTV recording and its speaker-attributed transcript; no notice, agenda, budget document or minutes are online. The budget subcommittee presented a $31,828,063 operating budget and four special warrant articles, the business administrator explained the new default-budget rules (the default came out about $179,000 below the proposed budget), two residents and a reporter asked questions, and the board then sent all warrant articles to the February 6 deliberative session. Timestamps link to the same moment in the Cablecast recording.
Body
Claremont School Board (SAU 6), holding the budget public hearing and then acting as a board
Date
Wednesday, January 2, 2019 (set at the December 19, 2018 meeting, with January 3 as the snow date)
Start time
Not stated on the recording. Hearing opened at 0:00:10 and closed at 0:47:49; a three-minute break (0:48:04); the board's business resumes mid-discussion at 0:48:30 with no call to order or roll call on the recording; adjournment vote at 1:01:48. The dialogue file runs 1:02:08.
Location
Not stated in any available record. On December 19 the board chose to hold it in its usual meeting room, where it could be televised, rather than at the high school; the building is not named.
None located in the district's public shares as of September 26, 2026; the shares' year folders begin in 2022 (MAP.md section 91). The minutes of this meeting were approved on February 20, 2019 (see that page).
Board composition
Seven members: Frank Sprague (chair), Rebecca Zullo (vice chair), Jason Benware, Rob Lovett Jr., Michael Petrin, Michelle Pierce, Carolyn Towle. No roll call is on the recording; Rob Lovett Jr. is not identified speaking.
Participants
Everyone in the record. 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
Frank Sprague
Chair; budget subcommittee
Set the hearing rules, presented the warrant articles and tax impacts, read a Claremont Development Authority letter, ran the board session.
Jason Benware
Board member; budget subcommittee
Presented fixed costs, revenues, the budget goal and the elementary alternative program; moved the warrant articles and the policies.
Michael Petrin
Board member; budget subcommittee
Presented the budget by object, reductions and additions; seconded the policies.
Michelle Pierce
Board member
Questioned the alternative program and whether affected families were consulted; said some members were "just seeing this today". Some of her rows are marked uncertain in the CSV.
Rebecca Zullo
Vice Chair
Asked what the radio article buys and what happens to unspent money.
Carolyn Towle
Board member
Urged members to take questions to the special education director; seconded the warrant-article motion (uncertain) and adjournment.
Rob Lovett Jr.
Board member
Not identified speaking; attendance not recorded.
Michael O'Neill
Business Administrator, SAU 6
Explained the default budget and the 2018 changes to it; the fire panel.
Cory LeClair
Assistant Superintendent, SAU 6 (LeClaire)
Answered how positions are chosen for reduction; cohort sizes; account codes; future agenda.
Ben Nester
Director of Special Education, SAU 6 (Nestor)
Answered on program models for the alternative program.
Marjorie Erickson
SAU 6 board chair (Unity member)
Called "our fabulous chair" by LeClair; discussed a date for the next SAU 6 meeting. The project's governance timeline records her election as SAU 6 chair on June 14, 2018.
Unidentified resident
Public commenter (name not audible)
Asked whether the alternative program had a benchmark model and whether it would draw families to Claremont (0:19:51).
Glynnis Hart
Reporter, Eagle Times
Asked what the 300 to 700 lines contain.
Jonathan Young
Resident, Ward 3
Asked how position cuts are chosen and which positions.
Unidentified staff member
SAU 6 staff member who obtained the radio quotes
Explained the quotes and the planned RFP (0:48:56).
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda or hearing notice for this meeting is posted in any district share, so this list is reconstructed from the chair's transitions on the recording. Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
A motion to take the radio article separately was withdrawn and its second rescinded (0:50:13, 0:50:16); Benware then moved "all of the Warren articles forward to the deliberative session" (0:50:21), second credited to Towle (uncertain); carried on a voice vote (0:53:54). See flag 2.
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.
"the school board will be the budget committee will be doing the presentation as opposed to school administration." Rules: "Only three minutes will be given to each citizen." (0:01:14).
Non-union increases of $55,681 and benefits of $93,134 (0:02:43); catastrophic aid "down $30,000", adequacy "down $71,061" (0:03:45); "loss of stabilization plus the loss of excess special ed aid is $101,061" (0:04:11).
"Fixed cost increases and loss of revenue equates to $914,841 this year. Dividing that in half, we come up with a number of $457,420.50." The proposed budget, "$31,828,063, which showed an increase of 333,653" (0:05:26); with lost revenue, 434,714, "below what our max target was."
Salaries up "approximately $698,000"; outside services "reduced by 86,000" (0:06:40); repairs and maintenance "went up to 71,000" (0:07:01). Reductions: "At the high school we're looking to reduce by four positions." (0:08:34).
An ROTC class at the tech center; an ESOL tutor (0:09:57); the elementary alternative program (0:10:59): "The staffing cost is $623,000 a year", offset by bringing back three students placed out of district at "about 90,000 per kid" (0:12:13).
"the operating budget is 31,000,828 and $63." Roof maintenance "100,000, but it's no increase" (0:16:18); radios after a lockdown when schools "had no ability to communicate with each other" (0:16:47); all articles would "raise the budget to 32,309,013" (0:17:51).
"is there a benchmark model for this program"; "will it attract a lot of families to move to the community?" (0:20:11). Nester: "We've looked at a number of models." (0:20:43). Benware: "the reality of it is they're already here." (0:21:49).
Hart: "I was just hoping you could break out. What? The three to 300 to 700 lines are." Chair: budgets tightened by comparing requests with actuals (0:25:30).
Young: "How are the position cuts at those specific schools chosen". LeClair: enrollment data, principal recommendation, and "the goal right now is to be able to handle everything through either attrition" (0:28:17).
Read by the chair: "The Claremont Development Authority enthusiastically, enthusiastically supports expanded programing for sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center." The chair: "cutting to the bare bone, serves no one." (0:33:12).
O'Neill cites "House Bill 1307" and "Senate Bill 342": "it used to be you could carry those positions forward, but the new law says and by salaries and benefits of positions that were eliminated in the proposed budget." (0:36:30).
"I distributed a copy of the line item default budget for everybody to look at. We're not going to discuss it tonight, but it'll be available for discussion at the deliberative session." "the default budget is actually $179,000 less than the proposed budget." (0:37:16).
Chair: "if the voters were to approve the default budget of 179,000, I'm not going to pull any punches." "That would be painful." (0:39:20); "I think this is the first time we've as a, have seen it ourselves as the board."
Pierce: "did you consult community members". LeClair: "We've talked with families, we've talked with different providers. We've consulted with the Department of Education" (0:44:56). Benware: the same material was presented "at least three times" (0:45:56). Pierce: "Some of the board members are just seeing this today." Chair: "Point of order. Okay, enough." (0:46:55).
Zullo: "is there a way to just give information on what it is, exactly what it includes." Staff: "I got a few quotes"; "we'd want to go out to do an official RFP process should the warrant article be passed." (0:48:56). Chair: "I would lean toward letting the voters decide." (0:49:42).
"I move that we move all of the Warren articles forward to the deliberative session." Pierce: "Didn't we just start out going one by one?" (0:50:45). Chair: "We've already decided the the main budget. Now these are the warrants." (0:51:35). Petrin: "the roof and improvements", fire panel, radios, cameras (0:53:39). Carried.
Petrin: "if the panel fails and we can't fix it, the fire watch is a fire. Someone from the fire station posted at the school". O'Neill: parts found "from different sources" (0:52:11).
Zullo asks for an explanation of the articles; O'Neill: "Normally at the deliberative session, we provide additional information." Pierce: "Could we get that out sooner though personally." (0:53:20).
"Well, we've approved the budget. The budget is going to deliver the session." January 17 joint meeting with the City Council (0:58:08), on "the pitfalls of a default budget" (0:58:17). SAU 6 meeting: Erickson, "Is no date on the calendar at the moment." (0:58:54).
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the meeting against the state law in force on January 2, 2019. 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. Four flags follow, ordered by severity. No HIGH or MEDIUM flag was found.
OBSERVATION No minutes or hearing notice are online, and the recording does not show who was present or who seconded
RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes naming the members present, persons appearing, the subjects discussed and final decisions, open to inspection within five business days, and, from January 1, 2019 (two days before this meeting), "The names of the members who made or seconded each motion". The recording has no roll call for either part of the evening, and Rob Lovett Jr. is never identified speaking. The second on the warrant-article motion is credited only by the mover's "I think, Carolyn." (0:50:40), and the second withdrawn from the radio motion is unattributed (0:50:16). RSA 32:5, I required public notice of this hearing at least 7 days in advance; the notice is not online either. None of these documents are 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, and the board approved minutes of January 2 on February 20 (see the February 20 page). Graded an observation under the project's rule for missing records.
OBSERVATION The recording does not show the operating budget being finalized after the hearing closed
RSA 32:5, I, in the text in force on this date, requires the governing body to hold the hearing and "after the conclusion of public testimony shall finalize the budget to be submitted to the legislative body". The board moved the $31,828,063 budget to the hearing on December 19 (see the December 19 page). After the hearing closed (0:47:49), the only budget motion on the recording was to move "all of the Warren articles forward to the deliberative session" (0:50:21); when a member asked whether they were going one by one, the chair answered "We've already decided the the main budget. Now these are the warrants." (0:51:35), and a member then listed only the four special articles (0:53:39). Later the chair said "we've approved the budget" (0:57:13). The operating budget is itself a warrant article, so the motion's words may have covered it; the chair's words suggest the board treated it as settled before testimony. Either reading is possible and the minutes, which are not online, would settle it. No change to any amount after the hearing appears on the recording, so RSA 32:5, II's bar on inserting undisclosed appropriations is not engaged.
OBSERVATION The default budget was disclosed, but its discussion was deferred, and the board said it was seeing the figure for the first time
RSA 40:13, XI(a), in the text in force on this date (after the 2018 amendments recorded in its source note as 2018, 241:1, 2 and 313:1, 2), provides: "The default budget shall be disclosed and presented for questions and discussion at the first budget hearing held pursuant to RSA 32:5 or RSA 197:6." The business administrator distributed the line-item default budget and gave its relation to the proposed budget, "$179,000 less" (0:37:16), and the chair later asked for "any other questions regarding the default budget" (0:47:49). But the administrator also said "We're not going to discuss it tonight, but it'll be available for discussion at the deliberative session" (0:35:56), and the chair said "I think this is the first time we've as a, have seen it ourselves as the board" (0:39:20). The paragraph asks for more than disclosure, and this was the first hearing. The figure also moved: at the deliberative session (Cablecast show 10232) the chair described the default as "$193,340 less than our proposed budget", while the article as read put the two amounts $179,313 apart (see the deliberative session page). The administrator attributed the rules to "House Bill 1307" and "Senate Bill 342"; this page did not match those bills to the chapter numbers and does not rely on them. IX(b), as then in force, reduced the default by "salaries and benefits of positions that have been eliminated in the proposed budget", which is the mechanism he described (0:36:30).
POSITIVE The hearing was held well inside the statutory calendar, with stated rules, and the public's questions were answered
RSA 40:13, II-a, as then in force, required budget hearings under RSA 32:5 "on or before the third Tuesday in January"; the third Tuesday of January 2019 was January 15, and the hearing was held January 2. RSA 32:5, I requires the hearing "not later than 25 days before" the annual meeting; the deliberative session on February 6 was 35 days later. The chair announced the order of business and time limits at the outset (0:00:10, 0:01:14), the budget subcommittee presented in person, and each question from a resident and from an Eagle Times reporter received an answer from the board or staff (0:20:43, 0:24:43, 0:27:24). The board had also chosen a room where the hearing could be televised.
No hearing notice, budget, default budget form, packet or minutes for this meeting is in the district's public Drive shares, whose year folders begin in 2022 (MAP.md section 91, checked 9/26/26).