Participants
Everyone in the record. Names follow the dialogue CSV; where the CSV says Unidentified, this page says unidentified. ASR renderings of names are shown in code. Voters are listed in speaking order with the ward they gave. No minutes were available to check spellings.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Tracy Pope | District moderator (surname per roster; uncertain) | Called the session to order, read the rules of procedure, took the minutes of four 2019 district meetings, recognized every speaker, twice warned a voter against being disrespectful, and closed the session. Apologized that at "the last district meeting, people in the audience had their hands up to speak and would not recognize." |
| Frank Sprague | Chair, Claremont School Board | Opening statement on state aid and the one-time money; moved to restrict reconsideration of Article 2; presented Article 5 (maintenance and transportation). Rendered Frank spring, Mr. Spray, the strike spread. |
| Rebecca Zullo | Vice Chair | Presented Articles 3 (secretaries) and 4 (paraprofessionals). Rendered Rebecca zero. |
| Jason Benware | Board member; budget subcommittee | Read and presented Article 2; spoke for it again as a Ward 1 voter; answered questions on the 2018 bus lease and on the reserve funds: "I can tell you there wasn't any money to just be setting aside." Rendered Jason. Ben. Where, Jason Bentley, Jason Benoit. |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member; capital improvement committee | Spoke for Article 2 as a Ward 2 voter (firewood metaphor) and presented Article 7. The dialogue file also gives him the answers to a Ward 3 voter at 1:11:00 to 1:15:12 on a phrase match only (low-to-medium confidence per the attribution report). Rendered Robert L..., Mr. Mullet. |
| Michael Petrin | Board member; budget subcommittee | Read and presented Article 6 (school bus capital reserve fund). Rendered Michael Friedrich, Michael Patron. |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member | Led the Pledge; read Article 1 (election of officers). Rendered Carolyn told, Carolyn Tall, Mrs. Tom. |
| Mary Woodman | School district clerk | Introduced by the chair (Mary Whitman); not heard speaking. |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Introduced staff, played the governor's video and explained how the district split the state's one-time money: "we voted to put 650 in the Special Education Trust, and the other 650 is returned to the taxpayer." |
| Richard Seaman | Assistant superintendent for finance, operations and human resources | Gave the budget, revenue, tax-rate and default-budget presentation; answered questions on the pellet-boiler contract, bus leasing and capital reserves. Former board chair ("I was on the board starting, I think, in 2007"). Rendered Richard Seaborn, Richard Senior, Mr. Siemens. |
| Chris Sununu | Governor (recorded video) | Excerpt of a video played by the superintendent on the one-time state money (0:21:00 to about 0:23:06). |
| Tyler Sullivan; Jeff Small; Matt Upton | Student representative; technology director; school attorney | Introduced by the superintendent; not heard speaking. The Stevens student who spoke at 0:56:52 is unidentified in the dialogue file (possibly the student representative; not established). |
| Melissa Small; Dale Bonnell; Scott Pope | SAU administrative assistant; Stevens head custodian (spelling as heard); floor microphone | Thanked or named by the moderator at 0:01:46 and 0:04:40. |
| Cynthia Howard | Voter, Ward 2 | Opposed Article 2 ("To me, this is a big spending plan"); challenged the 2013 pellet-boiler savings; opposed the bus reserve fund: "we are surrendering our our control over to the school board." |
| Paul (surname not established) | Voter, Ward 2 | Spoke several times: on maintenance, the Dow building, paraprofessional pay and insurance, and bus reserves and leasing. Warned twice by the moderator. Surname heard as Lucas, Casa, Cast, Castro, Carson. |
| David Larson | Voter, Ward 1 | New resident; could not reconcile the budget figures on the slides with the warrant and asked for more detail, sooner. |
| Gloria | Voter, Ward 3 | Asked about special education costs and tuition, and about the tax outlook two years out. |
Unidentified (John MC) | Voter, Ward 1; former board member | Said many of the listed repairs were on the list when he served "12, 16 years ago". |
| Amanda Barton | Voter (ward heard as or two) | Spoke for the budget and teacher pay. |
| Christiana | Voter, Ward 2 | Asked about roof warranties and urged insulation before HVAC replacement. |
| Joshua | Voter, Ward 1 | Stevens graduate; spoke about the age of the buildings. |
| Samantha Bailey | Voter, Ward 3; teacher, former paraprofessional | Spoke for the budget and paraprofessional pay. |
| Adam | Voter | Asked what Article 7 would cover; a follow-up question was cut off when discussion closed. |
| Unidentified voters | Several speakers | A Stevens High School student (0:56:52); a voter asking to discuss the parts of Article 2 (1:04:32); an employee of the SAU office building (1:08:35); a resident who said she was not yet a registered voter (1:44:03); a special education para-educator at Stevens (1:44:39); a voter on pay equity for low earners (1:47:05); a Ward 1 voter on bus arithmetic (2:12:18); a Ward 2 voter on reserve-fund planning (2:17:07); a voter on buses and idling (2:22:05). |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No warrant, posted agenda or rules sheet for this session is online, so the order below follows the moderator's transitions on the recording. Article titles and amounts are as read aloud (ASR wording where quoted). Hover over (or Tab to) a clipped entry for the full text.
| Taken up | Item | Disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:01 | Call to order; Pledge; introductions; rules of procedure | Introductions by the superintendent (0:01:02) and the chair (0:01:33); rules read from 0:02:19: five minutes for proponents, two minutes per speaker, sign-in and name and ward at the podium, written and signed amendments. |
| 0:04:40 | Minutes of the four 2019 district meetings | Approved one by one on voice votes: the 2019 deliberative session of February 6, 2019 (0:05:14), and the special district meetings of May 15 (0:05:59), November 21 (0:06:45) and December 12, 2019 (0:07:28). |
| 0:08:23 | Chair's opening statement | State aid, the one-time money, the budget subcommittee's review and the case against the default budget. |
| 0:13:20 | Article 1: election of school district officials | Read by Towle; no discussion; the moderator took a voice vote. |
| 0:14:37 | Article 2: operating budget, $38,202,661 (default $35,501,890) | Read by Benware, including year one of a three-year agreement with the Sugar River Education Association; joint presentation by the superintendent and business administrator; debate from 0:53:44. No amendment offered. Reconsideration restricted on Sprague's motion at 1:35:00 (the moderator put it as Articles 1 and 2). |
| 1:35:47 | Article 3: Claremont Association of Secretaries agreement | Read by Zullo; the question was moved and carried on a voice vote. |
| 1:39:13 | Article 4: paraprofessionals' agreement | Read by Zullo; debate; no amendment. |
| 1:51:06 | Article 5: maintenance and transportation employees' agreement | Read by Sprague. Reconsideration of Articles 3, 4 and 5 restricted on an unidentified voice's motion at 1:54:48. |
| 1:55:23 | Article 6: school bus repair and replacement capital reserve fund, $500,000 | Read by Petrin; long debate; no amendment; the moderator moved on at 2:24:45. |
| 2:25:04 | Article 7: building repair and renovation capital reserve fund, $500,000 | Read by Lovett; one voter's question; discussion closed at 2:27:11. |
| 2:27:34 | Close | "This concludes tonight's meeting." The moderator reminds voters that "all of these warrant articles will be placed on the second district meeting, which is held March 10th 19." |
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.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:01 | Opening | "I'd like to call to order and welcome you to the February 6th deliberative session." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:03:07 | Rules; an apology | "I was recently told that at the last district meeting, people in the audience had their hands up to speak and would not recognize. I'd like to apologize." Amendments "must be in writing, presented to the moderator, signed by a person making the motion and the person seconding the motion." | POSITIVE |
| 0:04:40 | 2019 minutes | "In 2019, we held for district meetings and will need to approve the minutes for each of these meetings individually." All four approved on voice votes. | POSITIVE |
| 0:08:59 | Chair on state aid | The legislature was "given the leverage to negotiate substantial one time money for many school districts", meant "to literally stop the bleeding caused by the phasing out of stabilization funds". On the default budget: "I'm not going to lie to you folks. This offers a significant tax reduction for the coming year only." | |
| 0:15:30 | Article 2 read | "$38,202,661. Should this article be defeated, the default budget shall be $35,501,890, which is the same as last year, with certain adjustments required by previous action of the Claremont School District or by law." The teachers' agreement adds "$421,267" in fiscal 2021. | |
| 0:21:35 | Governor's video | Sununu: "When Concord has opportunity, it's not our money, it's yours." "I didn't realize it was 6.2 million. So I was looking at the numbers for Claremont this morning." | |
| 0:25:31 | Where the one-time money went | Tempesta: of the first $1.3 million, "we voted to put 650 in the Special Education Trust, and the other 650 is returned to the taxpayer." Of the second allocation, $1.5 million in the main budget, two $500,000 reserve funds, and "400,000 is slated to go back to the taxpayers". | |
| 0:31:41 | An unexplained transfer | Seaman: "We had last year fund transfer of $65,000, which I have been unsuccessful in finding out what that is or why we had it. And if we couldn't find out why it was there, I took it out." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:32:07 | Special education and schools | Out-of-district special education: "The budget was set at $380,000. Next year, we're we're proposing a $519,000 expenditure." Middle school: "the $479,000 increase at the Claremont Middle School is primarily related to the addition of for teaching positions" (two social studies, two science). | |
| 0:39:24 | One-time state aid | "Don't go out and hire new positions because this money won't be here the year after." | |
| 0:43:25 | Tax rate | Assessed valuation "$749 million", local rate "$20.49", "a total tax rate of $22.47, which is $2.07 lower than last year." With the articles, Seaman says a 56-cent reduction remains (0:45:22). | |
| 0:45:50 | Default budget explained | Removes the $1.5 million of capital work and the teachers' contract, plus "a reduction of $759,000 in vacant positions. So we've had positions in the budget. They have not been filled. We do not anticipate they will need to be filled and we've taken that out." Result: "a total tax rate of 1882, which is a $5.68 reduction from this year." | OBSERVATION POSITIVE |
| 0:52:47 | Capital list not yet priced | The list "adds up to almost 1.8 million" against $1.5 million requested: "We have not asked people for a final price. We're absolutely convinced that we can talk to pricing down". | |
| 0:54:34 | Against: Howard | "To me, this is a big spending plan." "the money still belongs to the taxpayers, regardless of what some of the school board members have said is our money." | |
| 0:56:52 | For: a Stevens student | "I am a current student at Stevens High School"; describes the high school renovation, "We now have the ventilation we need and we have the fire code." | |
| 0:59:00 | Against: Paul | "you got the maintenance budget is the lowest thing on the budget. And it should be one of the highest things". | |
| 1:00:35 | For: Benware | "when those capital improvements are completed next year, they won't be in the budget." | |
| 1:04:13 | Early motion to restrict | Sprague moves to restrict reconsideration; a voter objects: "Can we discuss the individual parts of the article rather than just a and everything?" The moderator lets debate continue: "It doesn't necessarily have to be in favor or against." | |
| 1:06:37 | Larson: figures do not reconcile | "Your slides are showing 34 million." "I would ask the board to provide that information meetings in a more timely fashion and much more detail so that we can make a much more informed decision." Answer at 1:12:16: the grants and food service money bring $38.2 million "down to the $34,737,000"; "I actually explained it at the beginning and I didn't this year." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:16:50 | A former board member | "Many of those items that are on that list were on the list when I was on the school board 12, 16 years ago." | |
| 1:20:45 | Teacher and para pay | Barton: "if we do not pass this school budget, we are not supporting our teachers." Bailey (1:27:00): "I found that the pay was not even close to support a family." | |
| 1:29:02 | The 2013 pellet boilers | Howard: "We were supposed to receive a cost savings of at least the amount of the lease payments, which was around 233,000." "So that was a lie that was told to the taxpayers". Moderator: "Don't be derivative." Seaman: "My understanding is that this contract is performing as required", and he offers "a detailed report to the board and to all the taxpayers of how that has worked". | OBSERVATION |
| 1:32:37 | For: Lovett | "This is a one time opportunity where the local lumber company is giving us excess wood." | |
| 1:35:00 | Reconsideration restricted | Sprague: "I'd like to make a motion to restrict any further considerations to warrant article two." The moderator puts the question "to restrict consideration of articles one and two?"; carried on a voice vote. | OBSERVATION |
| 1:36:32 | Articles 3 and 4 | Secretaries: "Fiscal year 2021 is actually a decrease of 12,000 in the budget." Paraprofessionals: "raise an appropriate I'm gonna say again, 114,180 for the current fiscal year". | |
| 1:44:03 | A non-voter | "Yes, but they don't have my paperwork, so I'm not a registered voter today." Moderator: "You can't talk. I'm sorry." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:50:45 | How the session works | "If there's an amendment to the article, you vote on the amendment. But you discuss the attic, and then it goes to the next meeting for voting." | POSITIVE |
| 1:55:39 | Article 6: bus reserve | Petrin: "to establish a school bus repair or replacement capital reserve fund under the provision of RSA 35.1" and "to name the school board as agent to expend the fund from said funds." "We have we have 14 school busses". | OBSERVATION |
| 1:58:24 | Was there already a bus fund? | Paul: "Why are we asking for more money to put into a capital reserve when we already have one appropriated?" Moderator: "Please don't be disrespectful." Seaman reads the earlier article (2:05:51): a five-year bus lease; "There was no capital reserve that was put aside." | OBSERVATION |
| 2:03:07 | Who controls the fund | Howard: "we are surrendering our our control over to the school board." Moderator: "You will be voting on this. This article will go to the public for voting." Seaman (2:08:19): "If you don't like board members, put in different board members." | OBSERVATION |
| 2:12:18 | Bus arithmetic | A Ward 1 voter: "the cost of a new bus is 107,000, and you want to get four more". Seaman: "I used $100,000 for four busses." | |
| 2:15:44 | Second warning | "I'm not going to warn you again for being disrespectful." Benware: "I can tell you there wasn't any money to just be setting aside." | |
| 2:17:43 | Reserve planning | A Ward 2 voter: "we're asking for $1.34 on the tax rate for this in the next foreign article." Seaman: the board's expectation is "not to have to come back with any more articles for the next 3 to 5 years." | |
| 2:25:09 | Article 7: building reserve | Lovett: "raise an appropriate disarm of $500,000 to be placed in this fund"; the aim is "to ensure that there will be no further warrant articles needed for a minimum of 3 to 5 years moving forward." Asked what it covers: "My crystal ball just doesn't work that way". | OBSERVATION |
| 2:27:11 | Close | The moderator refuses Adam's follow-up: "I closed discussion on this article." An unidentified voice: "Moderators like to make a motion to adjourn." The moderator ends the session without a vote. | OBSERVATION |
Items flagged for review
Flags are a reviewer's aid generated by comparing the session against the state law in force in February 2020. A deliberative session is a meeting of the voters, so school-board rules (public-comment periods, nonpublic sessions, roll calls) do not apply to it; RSA chapter 40 as extended to school districts does. 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. Eight flags follow, ordered by severity. No HIGH or MEDIUM flag was found.
OBSERVATION The record gives three different dates for this session
The project's file name and MAP.md heading date the session February 1, 2020 (a Saturday). CCTV's gallery title reads 2/5/20. The moderator opens "the February 6th deliberative session" (0:00:01), which may be a slip: the 2019 session whose minutes she then takes was held "February 6th, 2019" (0:05:14). At the January 21, 2020 board meeting the board voted to send the budget to the deliberative session, and the Valley News report of that meeting (January 22, 2020) gives the date and place as "Wed., Feb. 5 at 6:30 in the high school auditorium". The weight of the evidence is Wednesday, February 5, 2020. Nothing turns on it legally: RSA 40:13, III sets the first session "between the first and second Saturdays following the last Monday in January"; the last Monday of January 2020 was January 27, so the window ran from February 1 to February 8 and all three dates fall inside it. The file name and MAP.md heading should be checked against CCTV's own record.
Sources: RSA 40:13, III (last amended 2019, 192:2, eff. July 10, 2019; in force on this date); Valley News, January 22, 2020 (reporting).
OBSERVATION The budget was shown to voters on three different bases, and a voter could not reconcile them until a board member explained it from the floor
The warrant article reads $38,202,661 with a default of $35,501,890 (0:15:30); the presentation worked from a local figure of about $34.7 million and a default of 32 [million] (0:46:10). David Larson, new to the city, said the slides and the document did not match and asked for "much more detail" and "a more timely fashion" (1:06:37). A board member then explained that grants, food service and other pass-through money take $38.2 million "down to the $34,737,000" and said "I actually explained it at the beginning and I didn't this year" (1:12:16). The default-budget explanation also bears reading against the statute: RSA 40:13, IX(b) reduces the default by one-time expenditures and by "salaries and benefits of positions that have been eliminated in the proposed budget", and provides that "eliminated positions shall not include vacant positions under recruitment". The business administrator described the $759,000 as vacant positions the district does "not anticipate they will need to be filled" (0:47:07), which on its face fits the statute; the default budget form itself was not available to check. Recorded as an observation: no rule requires a particular presentation, and the reconciliation was given on the record.
Sources: RSA 40:13, IX(b) (definition of default budget; in force on this date); the recording at the times linked above.
OBSERVATION The business administrator removed a $65,000 prior-year fund transfer that he could not explain
"We had last year fund transfer of $65,000, which I have been unsuccessful in finding out what that is or why we had it. And if we couldn't find out why it was there, I took it out." (0:31:41). Removing an unexplained line is prudent; the admission that a $65,000 line in the prior year's adopted budget could not be traced four months into his tenure is a record-keeping question worth putting to the audited financial statements for fiscal 2019 and 2020. No verified rule is cited; recorded as an observation.
Sources: the recording at the time linked above. No verified rule applies.
OBSERVATION Two $500,000 capital reserve funds would name the school board as agents to spend; voters objected that this removes their year-by-year vote
Articles 6 and 7 each establish a capital reserve fund and name the school board as agents to expend (1:55:39, 2:25:09). Cynthia Howard objected that "we are surrendering our our control over to the school board" (2:03:07); the business administrator replied "If you don't like board members, put in different board members" (2:08:19). The mechanism is lawful: RSA 35:15, I, as codified in 2019, has the trustees hold the fund until the district votes to withdraw or "shall have named agents of the town, district or county to carry out the objects designated", in the manner prescribed by RSA 35:3. So the objection is a policy choice for the ballot, as the moderator told the voter (2:03:56). Two points in the record are worth checking: a voter's belief that an earlier bus reserve already existed was answered by reading an article passed "two years ago", a five-year bus lease-purchase that set up no reserve (2:05:51); and the stated aim of "no further warrant articles" for "3 to 5 years" (2:25:37) can be tested against later warrants.
Sources: RSA 35:15, I (2019 codification; source note ends 2007, 178:3).
OBSERVATION A voter called the 2013 pellet-boiler savings promise "a lie"; the business administrator, who chaired the board then, promised a public report
Cynthia Howard said the 2013 renovation was supposed to save "at least the amount of the lease payments, which was around 233,000" and that only $25,000 had been reported (1:29:02). Richard Seaman, board chair at the time, said "this contract is performing as required", that unpaid savings would be made good by Johnson Controls, and that he would provide "a detailed report to the board and to all the taxpayers of how that has worked" (1:30:34, 1:30:58). Whether that report was delivered is a follow-up item for the later 2020 pages. The speaker who promised the report also had a personal stake in the answer, having chaired the board that approved the contract; he disclosed that himself. No verified rule is cited.
Sources: the recording at the times linked above. No verified rule applies.
OBSERVATION Procedural loose ends: a restriction motion restated wider than moved, voice votes on articles, a non-voter refused, and a close without a vote
Sprague moved to restrict reconsideration of "warrant article two"; the moderator put the question on "articles one and two" (1:35:00, 1:35:18). RSA 40:10, I lets the meeting restrict reconsideration "of any one or more votes previously taken at that meeting, or warrant articles previously considered", so either scope was available, but the question put was not the motion made. The moderator also took voice votes on Article 1 (0:14:15), although under RSA 40:13, VI every article goes to the official ballot whatever the first session does; later she explained exactly that (1:50:45, 2:21:13). A resident who said she was "not a registered voter today" was told "You can't talk" (1:44:08); the moderator regulates the business of the meeting under RSA 40:4, and no statute found gives a non-voter a right to speak, so this is noted only. At the end the moderator refused a voter's follow-up question and closed the session on her own announcement while a motion to adjourn was being offered (2:27:11, 2:27:34). None of these is shown to have affected any article.
Sources: RSA 40:10, I and V (1996, 64:1; applies to school district meetings); RSA 40:13, VI; RSA 40:4 (moderator regulates the business of the meeting).
OBSERVATION No minutes, warrant or rules sheet for this session are online
RSA 197:20 makes the district clerk keep "a true record of all the doings of each meeting". The district's public Drive shares begin in 2022 and hold nothing for this session (MAP.md section 124, checked September 26, 2026). That is a limit of what the district posts online, not evidence that no record was kept: at this very session the voters approved the minutes of four 2019 district meetings (0:04:40), which shows the clerk was keeping them, and the 2020 minutes would in the ordinary course have been approved at the 2021 session. Graded an observation under the project's rule for missing records (the absence is of online posting only, and the record itself points to minutes being kept).
Sources: RSA 197:20 (1963, 120:5; unamended).
POSITIVE Rules read and explained, prior minutes approved by the voters, the default budget laid out line by line, and reconsideration restricted as the statute allows
The moderator read the rules, including sign-in, time limits and written amendments, and apologized that speakers had been missed at the previous district meeting (0:03:07). She put the minutes of each of the four 2019 district meetings to the voters separately (0:04:40), and twice told the room that every article would appear on the March ballot (1:50:45, 2:21:13), which is what RSA 40:13, VI provides. The business administrator walked through what the default budget removes and what the tax rate would be under it (0:45:50), which gives voters the comparison RSA 40:13, IX(b) and XI are built around. Reconsideration of Article 2 and of the three bargaining articles was restricted by vote (1:35:00, 1:54:48), a step RSA 40:10 allows "at any time during a meeting, and without notice in the warrant".
Sources: RSA 40:13, VI, IX(b), XI; RSA 40:10, I (1996, 64:1).
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast show 10722, "SCHOOL BOARD Deliberative Session on the Budget 2/5/20": Claremont Community Television. Every timestamp on this page links into this recording.
- No packet folder, warrant, default budget form, rules sheet or minutes for this session is in the district's public Drive shares, whose year folders begin in 2022 (MAP.md section 124, checked 9/26/26).
- Press: Valley News, January 22, 2020, "Claremont superintendent postpones push to revamp elementary schools" (Patrick O'Grady), for the session's date, time and place.
Project files (the dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the pages)
Dialogue/10722 SchoolBoardDeliberative020120.mp4.CSV: dialogue file, 607 rows.Input/Videos/10722 SchoolBoardDeliberative020120.mp4; Input/Transcripts/10722 SchoolBoardDeliberative020120.mp4.json.Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 124.Scripts/attribution_reports_2015_2023/10722 SchoolBoardDeliberative020120.mp4.md; Scripts/roster_2015_2023.md.
Laws and rules cited on this page