Participants
Everyone heard or named as taking part. Names follow the district’s own documents where they exist, then on-tape self-identification and the chair’s or clerk’s address; a first name only is kept where nothing more is on the record.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Tracy Pope | School district moderator (presiding) | Called the session to order, read the House Bill 1129 procedures (0:05:11), ran the minutes vote and the article readings. Name as printed in the minutes. |
| Heather Whitney | Vice chair, Claremont School Board | Led the Pledge and introduced the board (0:04:07); title per the minutes and Zullo’s answer at 0:03:50. |
| Frank Sprague | Chair, Claremont School Board | Absent (moderator at the opening; Benware: he is not going to be there tonight). |
| Rebecca Zullo | Board member | Present; pointed the moderator to Whitney as vice chair. |
| Jason Benware | Board member | Moved approval of the 2020 minutes (0:10:28); read Article 2 (0:12:27). |
| Rob Lovett Jr. | Board member | Read Article 1 (0:11:29). |
| Michael Petrin | Board member | Present per the vice chair’s introduction; not heard on this recording (see flag 1). |
| Carolyn Towle | Board member | Seconded the minutes motion (0:10:37). |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Introduced the staff (0:02:52); recognized the budget subcommittee (0:13:39). |
| Richard Seaman | Assistant superintendent for finance and HR, SAU 6 | Budget, revenue, tax-impact and default-budget presentation (0:15:43). |
| Donna Magoon | Assistant superintendent, SAU 6 | Thanked by the moderator for coordinating the virtual meetings; pre-meeting paperwork. |
| Jeff Small | Technology director, SAU 6 | Ran the technology from the Stevens auditorium; unmuted participants for the voice vote. |
| Melissa Small | Administrative assistant, SAU 6 | Named as the recipient of voters’ written comments; introduced as present. |
| Matt Upton | District attorney | Introduced as joining. |
| Ben Nester | Director of special education, SAU 6 | Introduced as joining later. |
| Mary Woodman | School district clerk | Not present on the call per the vice chair (0:04:26); signed the minutes. |
Order of business
No posted agenda is on hand. The moderator read a fixed script, which the minutes reproduce closely; the list below follows it.
Items in the order taken up, with dispositions.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:01:58 | Call to order; Pledge | Moderator Pope; vice chair Whitney leads the Pledge. |
| 0:02:38 | Introductions | Superintendent introduces administrators; vice chair introduces board members and officers. |
| 0:05:11 | House Bill 1129 procedures | Written comments until 4 p.m. February 4; “No live comments or questions from registered voters will be allowed at either the February 1st or the February 4th, 2021 virtual meetings.” Drive-up voting March 9. |
| 0:10:06 | Minutes of the 2020 deliberative session (February 5, 2020) | Benware moved, Towle seconded; voice vote with participants unmuted, “The motion passes unanimously.” (OBSERVATION). |
| 0:10:59 | Article 1, election of officials | Read by Lovett. Moderator closes discussion at 0:11:43. |
| 0:12:20 | Article 2, operating budget | Read by Benware: $37,785,406, default $37,762,398, “The school Board recommends this article.” Presentation by Tempesta and Seaman; discussion closed at 0:40:45. |
| 0:40:45 | Closing reminders | Comment address and the February 4 session at 6:30 p.m. |
Discussion timeline
Times come from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/11276 SchoolDistrictMeeting020121.mp4.CSV). Quotations are the transcript as it stands, ASR errors included; bracketed words are editorial. Quotations from the minutes are labeled as such.
Topics in recording order.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:35 | Before the call to order | Benware asks whether the default budget is higher; Seaman: “No, it's actually about $0.03 lower.” [on the tax rate]. | |
| 0:01:58 | Call to order | Pope: “welcome you to the February 1st virtual deliberative session”. | |
| 0:03:33 | Who presides for the board | With the chair absent, the moderator asks Zullo whether she is vice chair; Zullo: “No, no, there's the vice chair. Heather.” Whitney introduces “Rob Lovatt, junior, Carolyn Tol, Jason Ben where Mike patron and Rebecca Zullo and myself” [Lovett, Towle, Benware, Petrin]. Clerk Woodman is not on the call (0:04:26). | MEDIUM |
| 0:05:11 | Process announced | Pope reads the House Bill 1129 procedures: submissions “will be verified against the checklist for eligibility”; at the February 4 meeting the board will “discuss, debate and amend the school district warrants”; if voters disapprove the process, “the warrant articles shall be deemed disapproved”. | |
| 0:10:06 | Minutes of the 2020 session | Pope asks Small “to unmute everyone that's participating in the meeting so that we can have a voice vote for the minutes”; she calls for nays first, hears none, and declares the motion carried. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:11:29 | Article 1 | Lovett reads the election article: “to elect a moderator, district clerk, and district treasurer each for a one year term and three school board members each for a three year term”. | |
| 0:12:27 | Article 2 | Benware reads: “totaling $37,785,406”; “The default budget shall be $37,762,398”. | |
| 0:13:39 | Budget subcommittee | Tempesta recognizes the subcommittee, “Subcommittee chairman Frank Sprague, Jason, Ben and Mike patron” [Sprague, Benware, Petrin], which met “Over the course of approximately, I think we did it in two, two weeks or three weeks”. | MEDIUM |
| 0:19:36 | Special education costs | Seaman: two students who moved in after last year’s budget “cost the district close to a half $1 million for the two out of district placements”; programs at Bluff are “allowing us to bring back three students who are currently out placed”. | |
| 0:21:27 | Tech center staffing | Seaman: a nurse for the tech center and “an additional guidance position” for CTE students. | |
| 0:22:31 | One-time state money | Seaman: the state gave “$2.9 million of one time money to Claremont”, used for roofing, paving and other capital work, which does not recur. | |
| 0:23:06 | Position reductions | Seaman: positions “through attrition that are being anticipated to be reduced”. Tempesta later: of the $584,000, “More than half of that money is what's known as turnover savings” (0:38:23). | |
| 0:25:50 | Year over year | Seaman: last year’s $1.13 million of warrant articles; “And as promised, there are no Warren articles for this year.” Total “39.3 million, including the Warren articles, compared to what is requested this year at 37.785”. | |
| 0:27:39 | Surplus expected | Seaman: “we do tend to report a surplus in that $400,000 range”, to be returned when the tax rate is set. | |
| 0:29:43 | Adequacy aid | Seaman: with enrollment down as home schooling rose, “we're having to absorb a $392,000 reduction in the adequacy”; with the $2.9 million, that makes the $3.3 million reduction (0:30:11). | |
| 0:33:02 | Tax impact, proposed budget | Seaman: “the amount to be raised by taxes is that $17,038,244”; “a total tax rate recommended in this budget of $24.53 as compared to last year's of $23.93, or an increase of $0.60”. | POSITIVE |
| 0:34:21 | Default budget explained | Seaman walks through what the default removes (one-time spending, the $584,000 of position reductions, lower debt cost) and adds back (contracts, health care, special education); general-fund default “34 million to 97, three, 98” [apparently $34,297,398]; “comes to a total tax rate of $24.50”, “So the default budget is $0.03 lower than the recommended budget.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:40:02 | No live comment; session closed | Pope invites voters to submit comments in writing, then “I will now close discussion on article two”; the second session is “6:30 p.m. on February 4th, 2021”. | |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer’s aid. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one cites the rule or record it rests on, as that rule read on the meeting date, so a reader can check the reasoning. A flag marked OBSERVATION has no confirmed rule behind it; POSITIVE marks practice worth noting on the other side of the ledger.
MEDIUM The minutes record a statement this recording does not contain and omit the session’s main business
The district’s minutes of this session (2.1.21 Minutes from Virtual District Meeting) state: “The Moderator recognized Board Member, Michael Petrin. Mr. Petrin stated that he wanted to recognize the members that served on the Budget Committee with him … Board Chair Frank Sprague, Jason Benware and himself who worked mornings for fifteen days to provide a Budget that would serve the Students and not increase the Budget.” (quoted from the minutes). Petrin is not heard on this recording. The budget subcommittee is recognized here by the superintendent (0:13:39), who describes the work as “two, two weeks or three weeks”. Petrin did recognize the subcommittee at the February 4 session, describing at least ten hours over five meetings (show 11281, dialogue rows 41 and 42), which is neither the speaker nor the figure the minutes give for February 1.
The minutes also leave out the roughly 25-minute budget and default-budget presentation by the superintendent and Seaman (0:13:23 to 0:38:02), and they are signed by the clerk, whom the vice chair reported as not present (0:04:26). RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes that include “a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions” (statutory wording, 2019 codification). The minutes do record the only decision correctly, with mover and seconder (Benware, Towle). Graded MEDIUM: an accuracy defect in the official record of a legislative-body session, without a misstated decision.
Sources: 2.1.21 Minutes from Virtual District Meeting; RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification); Dialogue/11281 SchoolDistrictMeeting020421.mp4.CSV (2/4/21 Petrin remarks).
OBSERVATION The minutes reached the district’s public share twenty-one months after the session
Google Drive metadata for the minutes PDF shows it created on 2022-11-03, inside the packet folder for the November 3, 2022 special district meeting. RSA 91-A:2, II makes minutes open to public inspection “not more than 5 business days after the meeting” (statutory wording). The Drive date measures when the document reached this share, not when it was written or first made available (html_briefing.md §22c), and the clerk may have held it for inspection at the SAU office. This session itself approved the minutes of the February 5, 2020 session a year after that session, so this district’s meeting minutes wait for the next district meeting to be approved, which may explain why these were filed with the November 2022 packet. The record on hand cannot settle whether the five-day rule was met.
Sources: 2.1.21 Minutes from Virtual District Meeting (Drive metadata: created 2022-11-03, modified 2022-11-03); RSA 91-A:2, II (2019 codification).
OBSERVATION The minutes vote was open to anyone on the call, while written comments had to be checked against the checklist
The moderator announced that written submissions must carry the voter’s name, address and ward and “will be verified against the checklist for eligibility”, and that “No live comments or questions from registered voters will be allowed”. For the 2020 minutes she then had every participant unmuted for a voice vote (0:10:06) and took it as unanimous on hearing no nays (0:10:59). Nothing on the record checked who on the Zoom or phone line was a Claremont voter. The item was routine and uncontested; the point is the inconsistency within the process, not a rule violation, since the chaptered text of House Bill 1129 was not read for this page.
Sources: Dialogue/11276 SchoolDistrictMeeting020121.mp4.CSV; 2.1.21 Minutes from Virtual District Meeting; HB 1129 (2020), bill status page (chaptered text not read).
POSITIVE The default budget and both tax rates were explained in full before any comment period opened
At the January 13 budget hearing the default budget had not yet been calculated (see that page’s flag 1). Here Seaman explained how the default is built under the official-ballot law, what it drops and adds back (0:34:52 to 0:36:13), and gave both rates: $24.53 for the recommended budget and $24.50 for the default (0:33:45, 0:37:30). RSA 40:13, XI(a) requires the default to be disclosed at the first budget hearing; this session, the first part of the annual meeting, went beyond that minimum by putting the comparison before voters at the start of the written-comment window. The session was reachable by Zoom, telephone, CCTV Channel 8 and a viewing room at Stevens High School (0:07:28).
Sources: RSA 40:13, XI(a) (2019 codification); Emergency Order #12 (March 23, 2020); Dialogue/11262 SchoolBoard011321.mp4.CSV (1/13/21 hearing).
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
Project files
Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.
Laws and rules cited on this page