Participants
Members, staff and absences on the recording. Names follow the project's 2015-2023 roster and the meeting's attribution report; there are no minutes to check spellings against.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Michael Petrin | Chair, SAU 6 Board (Claremont member) | Presides; recaps motions for the clerk (0:05:59, 1:15:07); explains that the $650,000 is “not something that goes on a ballot” (0:15:43); states the budget decrease “for those at home” (1:05:45); presses to set the hearing date tonight (1:17:30). |
| Frank Sprague | Member (Claremont School Board chair) | Gives the Claremont update (0:06:33); asks what a 2% placeholder would do to the budget (0:45:58); asks whether the new grants position can reduce the budget (0:54:03). |
| Rebecca Zullo | Member (Claremont vice chair) | Seconds the October minutes (0:05:38); policy committee update (0:08:16); praises the presentation (0:23:53); argues for equity between administrative and other raises (0:46:32); objects to approving the budget by email (1:12:27). |
| Jason Benware | Member (Claremont) | Moves the agenda (0:04:41) and the budget motion (1:13:43); proposes the 2% placeholder (0:48:37); questions the audit budget (0:58:50) and the merit pool (1:02:38); proposes ratifying the budget by email to the chair (1:12:16); suggests January 2 (1:19:47). |
| Carolyn Towle | Member (Claremont) | Asks about the missing superintendent's report (0:04:13); abstains on the October minutes, having been absent (0:05:45); reports on the Capital Improvement Committee (0:09:56). |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Member (Claremont) | Moves the October minutes (0:05:36); seconds the agenda and the budget motion by the chair's account (0:05:16, 1:15:07); speaks for the Capital Improvement Committee (0:11:14). The dialogue file's Benware cluster also carries some of his words. |
| Heather Whitney | Member (Claremont) | Called in the roll; one remark is attributed to her (1:14:46), identified by Towle (“That was Heather Whitney.”). |
| Marjorie Erickson | Member (Unity), SAU 6 vice chair | Answers the roll (0:03:40); no other remarks attributed to her. |
| Prudence McCormick | Member (Unity) | Asks to join the Claremont policy review (0:20:24); asks about Medicaid staffing and the maintenance rent line (0:32:09, 1:07:10); calls 2% “a good place holder” (1:16:45). |
| Unidentified Unity member (male) | Member (Unity); possibly Robert McDevitt (low confidence) | Gives the Unity update (0:18:22); says “2% is not sufficient” (1:15:59). The attribution report attaches the Nay, nay. on the budget vote to this cluster. |
| Robert McDevitt, Gary Bader, Shannon Popescu | Members (Unity) | Called in the roll (0:03:42, 0:03:50); no remarks attributed by name. Sharon in the roll is probably Popescu. |
| Richard Seaman | Business Administrator, SAU 6 (started October 2019) | Presents the FY21 SAU budget from a binder found in the SAU building (0:22:49); gives the motion figure (1:13:38). |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | No report tonight (0:04:19); speaks on the grants manager's role (0:55:29); “We don't know that yet.” on the budget deadline (1:19:23). |
| Mary Woodman | Clerk / recording secretary | Calls the roll; says the SAU budget is completed “By the end of December” (1:19:28). |
| Unidentified | Various | 198 of 765 dialogue rows (25.9%), including several board-member remarks in the business administrator's cluster. |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda survives. The chair refers to lettered items (“item letter C”, “general business E”); the list below is reconstructed from his transitions.
| Taken up | Item | What was said and done |
|---|
| 0:03:04 | Call to order; Pledge; roll call | Roll by the clerk (0:03:31); see Board composition. |
| 0:04:08 | Agenda | Superintendent's report (general business E) struck at the superintendent's request. Motion Benware; the chair: “Mary. Your second was Rob.” (0:05:16); voice vote (0:05:23). |
| 0:05:25 | Minutes of October 10, 2019 | Lovett: “I make a motion that we accept the minutes.” Second, Zullo; Towle abstains (“I wasn't here”). Voice vote (0:05:51); recapped by the chair (0:05:59). |
| 0:06:15 | Citizens' comments | None. |
| 0:06:15 | Claremont School Board update | Sprague, Zullo, Towle and Lovett on the $650,000, policies, the Capital Improvement Committee, budget and negotiations. |
| 0:18:15 | Unity School Board update | Unity master plan, principal search committee, budget starting December 19, joint policy review. |
| 0:22:38 | SAU 6 budget, FY21 | Seaman's presentation and line-by-line review. Benware: “I move that. We move the budget of the proposed budget of 1,000,700 and.” with Seaman supplying the rest, completed as $1,727,004.01 “to the public hearing scheduled for” / “To be determined.” (1:13:43 to 1:13:59). The chair: “Jason made the motion, and Rob had a second.” (1:15:07). Vote: “All in favor opposed?” followed by Nay, nay. and “I'm a nay.” (1:17:08); no count is announced. |
| 1:17:20 | Next meeting and hearing date | Public hearing and next meeting set for January 2, 2020 (1:21:32); SAU policies to be distributed that night (1:21:47). |
| 1:22:27 | Adjournment | Motion Benware (1:22:30); a second is heard with “Frank. Seconded.” Voice vote (1:22:46). |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/10639 SAU6120519.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording. Quotations are as transcribed; bracketed words are corrections, with the transcript's wording kept where the correction changes sense.
Chronological topics with the most concrete material first. The transcript renders SAU as Saw, SA, essay and see you.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:06:33 | Claremont update: the $650,000 and the website | Sprague: the unanticipated state money was split, “be fair to the taxpayers and return half of the money and at the same time invest into, programing” with $650,000 for alternative programs. On the repeated hearing: “Our contention with the Department of Revenue Administration is the Claremont doesn't have a web page, but, they did not. They felt that we have adopted the Saw web page.” (0:07:29) The cure meeting is “on next Thursday”. | |
| 0:08:45 | Infrastructure aid and the Capital Improvement Committee | Sprague: “So next year we're getting 2 million, 2 million plus in infrastructure aid.” (0:09:26) Towle: the committee visited every school with the principals and is reprioritizing; results in January (0:09:56). Lovett: “We've completed our assessment.” (0:11:14) | |
| 0:11:22 | Budget committee, contracts, past failures | Sprague: four contracts in negotiation; the teacher priority is the entry level, so Claremont is no longer “the farm team for other districts” (0:12:57). The new business administrator's “marching orders” mean “that appears very unlikely that we're going to be having the screw ups around the IRS and lunch, not getting forms into the state.” (0:13:57) | OBS |
| 0:14:37 | Could the board have kept all the money? | Zullo, for the public: “was it a requirement that we needed to give it back to the citizens?” An unidentified answer: No. Benware: “If we had a public hearing about it and it was voted that way. Yes.” (0:15:03) Petrin: the special education spending is “bringing the special ed that's being shipped out our maybe sometimes more than an hour away” back home (0:15:43). Benware: “we had to use it. In this fiscal year, it needed to do something needed to be done with it so the tax rate could be set.” (0:17:05) | |
| 0:18:22 | Unity update | The Unity principal search committee includes board members, teachers, the superintendent, a parent, a community member and “a student, a former student.” (0:18:54) McCormick asks to join Claremont's policy review (0:20:24); Benware: “we don't really have saw policies. We have Claremont unity.” (0:21:36) | |
| 0:22:49 | A budget rebuilt from a found binder | Seaman: “we actually found these red notebooks” when the SAU building was cleaned out, and “I really didn't have any background at all on the Saw budget”. Zullo: “this is the best presentation we've ever had of the budget the entire time that I've been on the board.” (0:23:53) | POS |
| 0:25:08 | People are the budget | Seaman: “between wages, health insurance and other benefits, that's 83% of the budget.” Placeholder: “we'd be looking at a 2.5% increase of salaries from this year to next year.” (0:29:16) “We only saw 1.8% increase at the SA level on health care” (0:29:42); “we are contributing 11.17% to everyone in here back into the retirement” (0:30:06). Benware: “So when you're paying somebody $40,000 a year, you're almost doubling that when you look at the benefits.” (0:32:20) | POS |
| 0:34:50 | A stipend that grows | Benware: the food service coordinator was presented last year as a stipend, not a position with yearly raises; “it's $376 we're talking about” (0:37:11). Seaman expects to ask whether the vendor should take on more of that work (0:36:25). | |
| 0:44:57 | 2.5% or 2% | Seaman: other business managers are using “two and a half, I'm finding 3% sort of the placeholder”; “This is just a cost of living increase. The inflation rate is coming in right in the 2% range for our area.” (0:45:20) Sprague: on the contracts “we are settling in around two.” Seaman: “If it's a 2%, the total line item goes from 937 to 933.” (0:46:26) Zullo: raises for those “referred to as top” above everyone else create “really hard feelings” (0:46:32). Benware: “So I propose that perhaps you adjust that to 2%.” (0:48:37) | |
| 0:50:32 | Cuts in technology and contracted services | Technology: “it's down $125,000 from last year presentation.” as a network administrator and a tech integrator position are dropped. Business office contracted services: “it's a reduction of 27.5 historically was it 62,005.” “And we're taking it to the 35,000 level.” (0:52:49), because grant management moves in-house. | |
| 0:54:03 | Grants | Sprague: the former grant position produced no budget relief; “It was it could supplement but not supplant, I think is the official terminology.” Zullo: “our old grant writer was part time, and she was, like, $65,000 a year.” (0:57:29) Seaman: “Sharon is not a grant writer, right? Sharon is a grant manager.” (0:57:53) | |
| 0:58:50 | The audit line | Benware: “we've, budgeted about $11,000 for auditors and we've blown that right out of the water several times.”; this year “we budgeted 11,500”, and FY21 carries $30,000. Seaman: “I actually have here the, the engagement contract for fiscal 18. So not even last year's but the year before. And they're saying it's going to be a $27,000.” (0:59:19) “We just got to catch up and then I can't speak to the past.” (1:00:04) On auditors: “they tell you exactly what you did wrong after you have no ability to change it.” (1:00:37) | OBS |
| 1:01:12 | Merit pool | The merit pool has been “set for the last couple of budgets at 3% of the salary”. Benware: “3% is not what it was intended for”; it was a maximum under a scoring system (1:02:52). Seaman will treat it as a payout: “It's a one time payment based on that year's merit.” (1:04:21) | |
| 1:05:45 | The total | Petrin: “we're looking at a decrease in the last from last year of 100 and roughly $168,000.” at the 2.5% placeholder. Benware: “I'm impressed that you can heat the Dow for $1,500 a year.” (1:06:28) The maintenance rent line: “It's a funny account that's called rent, but we don't actually rent anything that I've been able to find.” Sprague: “I think Claremont was renting to itself.” (1:07:48) Seaman expects to cut the Tyler Technologies software contract, “where I believe we're spending way too much money.” (1:08:56) | |
| 1:09:48 | How to lock in a number | Seaman: to move it to the hearing “we've got to have an actual number locked down” (1:11:25), by “beginning of January at the latest” (1:11:59). Benware: “Can you can you put the 2% in, send it to us via email, and can we ratify it to Mike of the board chair?” (1:12:16) Zullo: “We can't all email him or.” (1:12:27) Benware: “Just so like okay it looks good to me. And if we all do that or at least a preponderance.” (1:12:36) Seaman instead computes the figure on the spot: “1,727,000, $4 and a penny.” (1:13:38) | OBS |
| 1:15:20 | Unity objection to 2% | An unidentified Unity member: “I'm just voicing my concern that 2% is not sufficient.” Petrin: “if we move this to the public hearing, we can discuss it at the public hearing and make changes.” (1:16:33) Vote with at least one nay (1:17:08). | MED |
| 1:17:20 | Setting the hearing | Benware: “More than at least 14 days from the posting.” (1:17:53) Seaman: “Can we follow up and see whether or not indeed a public hearing is needed every day.” then “We do. We do need one.” (1:18:14) Benware: “We need to know the absolute drop dead date when which we can have this thing.” Tempesta: “We don't know that yet.” (1:19:23) The clerk: “By the end of December that you had the essay.” [SAU] / McCormick: “You budget completed.” (1:19:31) An unidentified voice: “They usually do have it completed in December.” Benware: “Why don't we just do January 2nd so we're safe.” (1:19:47) Seaman: “If we can get it in December, that'd be great.” and “This is not a normal year with all the changes.” (1:20:05) “So we'll try for January 2nd.” (1:21:32) | MED POS |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer's aid, not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one names the rule it rests on, as that rule read on December 5, 2019, or is labeled an observation where no verified rule applies.
MEDIUM The board set its budget hearing for January 2, after the date by which RSA 194-C:9 requires the SAU budget to be adopted
RSA 194-C:9, I provides: “At a meeting held before January 1, the school administrative unit board shall adopt a budget”. The exceptions do not reach SAU 6: ¶II covers single-district units, and ¶III covers districts that have adopted RSA 194-C:9-a, whose separate-warrant-article procedure under RSA 194-C:9-b “shall not apply to a school administrative unit that includes a city”, as SAU 6 includes the City of Claremont. Tonight the board did not adopt a budget; it moved a figure to a public hearing and then set that hearing for January 2, 2020 (1:21:32), so adoption could not happen before January 1.
The record shows the board knew a deadline existed and did not establish it. Benware asked for “the absolute drop dead date” (1:19:16) and again for “The deadline for this budget.” (1:20:21); the superintendent answered “We don't know that yet.” (1:19:23); the clerk said the SAU budget is completed “By the end of December” (1:19:28); Benware proposed January 2 “so we're safe” (1:19:47). Mitigating: no statute requires an SAU budget hearing at all, so the delay came from choosing a hearing, which is itself above the minimum (flag 5), and the business administrator called this “not a normal year”. This page grades the scheduling decision MEDIUM; the adoption itself happens on the January 2, 2020 page.
Sources: RSA 194-C:9, I-III (2019 codification; source note 1996, 298:3; 2003, 279:1); RSA 194-C:9-a (2019 codification); RSA 194-C:9-b, IV (2019 codification; not available to an SAU that includes a city)
MEDIUM No agenda, packet or minutes survive, and the recording cannot show who voted against the budget motion
MAP.md records no Drive material for this meeting, and no SAU 6 folder of this age survives in either district share. RSA 91-A:2, II, in the text in force since January 1, 2019, requires minutes that include the names of members, persons appearing, the members who made or seconded each motion, and a brief description of the subject matter and final decisions, open to public inspection within five business days. The budget vote ended with Nay, nay. and “I'm a nay.” (1:17:08) and no count; the second on the budget motion is known only from the chair's recap (1:15:07); and the motion figure is pieced together across six transcript rows. On a two-district board, which members voted no is a substantive fact.
This page applies the MEDIUM limb of the project's severity rule because the record mitigates the gap: the board approved its October 10 minutes tonight (0:05:25), and the chair twice checked that the clerk had the motions (0:05:59, 1:14:05), so minutes were being kept. What is missing is any public copy now.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification; source note ends 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019)
OBSERVATION A member proposed approving the budget figure by individual emails to the chair; the board voted in public instead
Benware asked whether the business administrator could “send it to us via email, and can we ratify it to Mike of the board chair?”, with each member replying individually, “And if we all do that or at least a preponderance.” (1:12:16, 1:12:36). Zullo objected (“We can't all email him or.”), and the business administrator produced the figure on the spot so that a motion could be made in the meeting (1:12:30, 1:13:38). RSA 91-A:2-a, I requires public bodies to deliberate only in meetings, and ¶II provides that communications outside a meeting, “including, but not limited to, sequential communications among members”, “shall not be used to circumvent the spirit and purpose” of the chapter. Collecting a majority's assent one email at a time is the pattern ¶II describes. The board did not adopt the proposal, so this is an observation; it is recorded because the objection and the in-meeting vote are what kept the decision public.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2-a, I-II (2016 codification; source note 2008, 303:4, unamended through 2022)
OBSERVATION The SAU's audit line was underbudgeted for years, and in December 2019 the business administrator was working from the FY2018 engagement letter
Benware said the SAU had budgeted about $11,000 a year for auditors and “blown that right out of the water several times”, with $11,500 budgeted for FY20 (0:58:50). The business administrator set FY21 at $30,000 because the engagement contract he had was for fiscal 2018, “So not even last year's but the year before”, quoting $27,000, and said “We just got to catch up” (0:59:19, 1:00:04). Read together, the remarks suggest the SAU's audits were running behind, although no one states which years were complete. Earlier, the Claremont chair credited the new business administrator with ending “the screw ups around the IRS and lunch, not getting forms into the state” (0:13:57). Neither remark is tied to a document in this record, and no statute verified for this page sets an audit deadline for an SAU, so this is an observation. The SAU's audit reports for FY2018 through FY2020, with their issue dates, would settle it.
Sources: Dialogue/10639 SAU6120519.mp4.CSV (rows at 0:58:50 to 1:01:02, and 0:13:57)
POSITIVE A line-by-line SAU budget in public, a lower total, and a public hearing the statute does not require
The business administrator walked the board through staffing, total compensation, object codes and each department's lines (0:24:22 to 1:08:56), separated the cost-of-living placeholder as a visible variable (0:48:32), and explained each reduction. Members repeatedly restated figures “for the people at home” (1:05:45, 1:07:07). The budget moved forward is lower than the current year's by the chair's account (1:05:45). RSA 194-C:9 requires the SAU board to adopt a budget and apportion it, but sets no public hearing requirement; the board's decision to hold one before adopting, and to keep the budget open to change there (1:16:33), goes beyond the statute. The cost of that choice, the January 1 date, is flag 1.
Sources: RSA 194-C:9 (2019 codification; adoption and apportionment, no hearing requirement)
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: SAU #6 SCHOOL BOARD meeting of 12/5/19 (show 10639; run time from the Cablecast API not retrieved, the API refused this environment on 2026-10-02)
- Google Drive: no packet folder, agenda or minutes. MAP.md: "neither share holds a year folder older than 2022, and the Meeting Minutes share starts at 2023 (checked 9/26/26)." Not searched again for this page, per the run instructions for meetings with no Drive material.
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Dialogue/10639 SAU6120519.mp4.CSV (765 attributed rows; the basis of this page)Input/Videos/10639 SAU6120519.mp4Input/Transcripts/10639 SAU6120519.mp4.jsonInput/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 118Scripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/10639 SAU6120519.mp4.md (speaker attribution report)
Laws and rules cited on this page
- RSA 194-C:9, I-III, 2019 codification (source note 1996, 298:3; 2003, 279:1, eff. Sept. 16, 2003; ¶IV added later by 2024, 329:1): SAU budget adopted “At a meeting held before January 1”; ¶II single-district units; ¶III districts that adopted RSA 194-C:9-a
- RSA 194-C:9-a, 2019 codification (source ends 2012, 7:1, 2): districts may adopt RSA 194-C:9-b by vote
- RSA 194-C:9-b, IV, 2019 codification (source ends 2012, 7:3): “This section shall not apply to a school administrative unit that includes a city.”
- RSA 91-A:2, II, 2019 codification (source note ends 2018, 244:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2019): minutes content including movers and seconders; five business days
- RSA 91-A:2-a, I-II (source note 2008, 303:4; unamended): deliberation only in meetings; no circumvention by outside communications