Claremont School Board Finance Committee, December 1, 2023 | FY2025 budget review with principals

Participants

No minutes exist to settle names, so speakers follow the dialogue file's attributions, each anchored there by self-introduction or direct address; titles follow the December 6, 2023 board agenda masthead and the project's 2023–24 roster notes.
Name	Role	Participation
Frank Sprague	Finance Committee chair; Claremont School Board vice chair	Opens at 0:00:01 ("This is a Claremont budget, our finance committee. We've changed our name."); runs the order of presenters; presses on out-of-district costs (1:25:17, 1:30:44), the technology integrator (2:32:16) and staffing detail by name (2:39:15); supports the middle-school teaching-load change (2:40:21); closes on keeping the whole board informed (2:59:50).
Heather Whitney	Claremont School Board chair; committee member	Questions Running Start and dual credit (0:14:43), the out-of-district savings estimate (1:32:48), and asks for an account of past budget errors "that impacted the tax rate one way or the other" (2:07:27); proposes a recorded caucus on December 18 (2:56:44). Says she will be away the following week.
Candace Crawford	Board member; committee member	Leads the line-by-line questioning: career counselor (0:07:10), CMS instructional salaries (0:47:05), paras, social worker, substitute pay (2:02:04), and the scheduling of further sessions (2:43:21, 2:46:27).
Mary Henry	Business Administrator	Answers on most lines and on the district-wide section; says the current budget "was uploaded before my time" (1:08:33); discloses the $688,426.17 line (2:00:19); agrees to prepare an account of budget discrepancies (2:07:42); warns that December 13 is too early to finalize and that the hearing is January 3 (2:44:23, 2:44:32).
Michael C. Tempesta	Superintendent, SAU 6	Takes part remotely (0:47:27: "You can hear me out."); answers on CMS staffing and out-of-district placements; most of his audio is not in the transcript.
Alex Herzog	Director, Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center	Self-introduces at 0:01:34; presents the technical-center budget and three hoped-for positions (health science teacher, career counselor, teacher-education program); leaves at 0:35:18.
Frank Romeo	Principal, Claremont Middle School	Introduced by the chair at 0:35:21; asks to keep a third counselor for "367 kiddos" (0:36:25), to retain an academic and behavioral room (0:37:44) and for a late bus (0:42:51); on the six-position reduction says "It does seem that way doesn't it?" (0:49:17).
Chris Pratt	Principal, Stevens High School	Presents from 1:12:11: about $10,000 for new visual-arts courses, a substitute line and $40,000 for town fields that he says were removed after he submitted last year's budget (1:13:18, 1:13:36), assistant coaches for liability (1:14:18); 13 paras (1:16:05).
Jeff Small	Director of Technology	Explains the proposed technology integrator (2:31:10), copier leases and E-Rate savings (2:34:52, 2:37:12). His name is not spoken on the recording; the dialogue file identifies him from his role and the district masthead.
Josh (surname not spoken)	CCTV operator	Named by the chair at 0:00:01; announces the switch off air at 2:55:12.
Chelsea (surname not spoken)	Addressed as note-taker; presence not established	The business administrator asks at 2:54:52 whether Chelsea "did you get it all?", and Whitney addresses Chelsea with the next meeting times at 2:58:50. The November 1, 2023 draft board minutes are "Respectfully submitted by Chelsea Weatherford" (minutes' wording); that this is the same person is likely but not established from this recording.
Unidentified	Short interjections	117 rows of the dialogue file are labelled Unidentified, almost all backchannel of a few words.

Named but not present: Ben Nester (Director of Special Education), to whom many special-education questions are deferred; Steve Holt (buildings and grounds), whom the members ask to attend a later session; Dave Jack, the interim business administrator before Henry.

Order of business (reconstructed)

No agenda was posted or found. The order below is reconstructed from the chair's transitions on the recording.

Taken up	Item	Disposition
0:00:01	Opening and purpose	The chair describes the committee's role as "a year long role, not just during the budget process, but anything in all things finance with the district" (0:00:19). No roll call, no motion.
0:01:34	Sugar River Valley Regional Technical Center budget	Questions only. The business administrator says she built in the health teacher but not the other requested positions (0:05:48) and that the career counselor is not in the draft (0:07:18); she later notes it is to go back in (2:55:30).
0:35:21	Claremont Middle School budget	Questions only. Instructional salaries down 333,000 with six fewer staff, implying a new schedule (0:47:05–0:49:17).
1:11:59	Stevens High School budget	Questions only, after a short break requested at 1:11:25.
1:54:12	District-wide budget (business administrator; technology director)	Questions only. The buildings-and-grounds director is not available; the members ask that he and the special-education director attend a later session.
2:37:21	Summary and scheduling	Consensus, no vote: sessions on December 6 at 1:00 p.m. (buildings and grounds, special education, revisions), December 13 at 9:00 a.m. to noon (summary of changes, middle-school schedule, tax-rate effect, compilation of budget inconsistencies), December 18 at 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. (members' session), and a full-board presentation on December 20 (2:51:07–2:59:19).

Discussion timeline

Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/15444 SchoolBoardFinance120123.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording. Page references are to the budget binder the members held, which is not published.

Time	Topic	What was said	Flags
0:00:01	Opening	"I'm not sure if we're on TV yet or not, but I'm going to get it started." The chair frames the work as "walking that very fine line between supporting our programs and presenting a, a palatable tax rate to our voters" (0:00:45).	POSITIVE
0:01:34	Technical center: supplies and new programs	Herzog: small supply increases for inflation; proposes a health science technology teacher, a career counselor and a teacher-education program, possibly by redeploying certified staff at first (0:06:03). Henry: "I built in the health teacher part of the budget, but I didn't build in the other ones."
0:07:10	Career counselor and a guidance line	Crawford: "I am really shocked because this has been an ongoing issue." A guidance salary of 51,801 shown last year and zero this year was "left in the budget the previous year" though never filled (0:08:40); Whitney recalls the position moved to the middle school (0:08:53).	MEDIUM
0:14:43	Running Start and dual credit	Whitney asks how far partnering with River Valley Community College can reduce local cost. Herzog: courses are taught by district teachers to the college's standards; most Running Start courses are "covered by the grants right from the state" (0:18:31).
0:24:12	Technical-center maintenance and staffing	Water and sewer, doors and a custodian vacancy. Crawford asks that the buildings-and-grounds director come to explain the maintenance lines (0:26:09); Whitney points to the capital improvement committee and capital reserve funds.
0:35:21	Middle school: counselors, academic centers, a bus	Romeo: a $97,000 instrument grant and new club stipends; asks to keep a third counselor because "There's always one in crisis" (0:36:25); would "like to retain at least one of those rooms, sort of as an academic slash behavioral room" (0:37:44); describes teacher duties including lunch coverage; calls an after-school bus "one of the essential things that I need" (0:42:51).
0:47:05	Middle school: six fewer staff	Crawford: "instructional salaries go down 333,000." The answer comes from the superintendent, whose audio is not transcribed; Crawford repeats "Six fewer staff." (0:48:09). Romeo says a schedule like the high school's is under review and "it's new as of this week" (0:48:50). Crawford: "if this budget has fewer six fewer staff, it implies that you will go to that new schedule next year" (0:49:05).
0:56:13	Lines with no history and 0% change	Sprague: a line "FY2324 was zero and now proposed 2425 it's 50,000" shows a zero percent change; Henry: "It's the way the system does it." (0:56:31) and "I don't know why I did that." (0:56:53). Two campus monitors moved from ESSER into the budget (1:02:19).	MEDIUM
1:04:04	Lack of staffing detail	Sprague: "That's where the the lack of detail in what we're being presented here makes it." Henry offers an Excel sheet with full line descriptions (1:04:10) and says the current budget "was uploaded before my time" (1:08:33); next year's lines "would be more consistent" (1:10:56).	OBSERVATION
1:12:11	High school: arts, substitutes, fields, coaches	Pratt: about $10,000 for pottery and printmaking; a substitute line that "was taken out after I submitted the budget" by "the former business minister" (1:13:18); $40,000 for town fields, also "taken out after the fact" (1:13:36); assistant coaches "strictly for liability reasons" (1:14:18); adding money gradually ahead of the end of ESSER grants (1:14:38).	MEDIUM
1:16:05	High school staffing	"we have a total of 13 pairs"; two guidance counselors budgeted, with a third sought through the career-center counselor (1:19:56).
1:25:17	Out-of-district placements	Sprague: the high school's bottom line rises $663,000, with special-education out-of-district "800 and something"; "we've got almost $1 million worth of what I'm presuming to be ninth graders. Right, that are out of district" (1:26:04). Henry: about $400,000 moved from the middle school (1:25:52). Pratt: "we cannot find special educators to take on that role of level of need" (1:26:51). Tempesta on one placement's tuition: "It's about 6060 1000." (1:30:16) and "We don't feel it's sustainable." (1:30:37). Whitney and Tempesta settle on a conservative 50% saving per returned student (1:34:27).
1:39:06	Social worker counted twice	A high-school social-worker line and the district-wide social worker turn out to describe one person; Henry agrees to "pull that out of Stevens High School" (1:50:58).	MEDIUM
1:56:02	District-wide special education	A special-education salary line up 133%; Henry suggests the prior budget figure was too low, and Whitney asks whether "there may have been an accounting error" (1:58:24). Questions on paras and therapists are deferred to the special-education director.	MEDIUM
2:00:19	The $688,426.17 line	Henry: "there was a, a line item called board voted expense reductions that was a negative number of $688,426.17 loaded into the budget. Now, again, I cannot tell you what that number was because I can't find any notes. Dave, Jack [Dave Jack] and I tried to figure it out and we couldn't." She means to leave it: "It'll eventually fall off the map and we don't have to worry about it." (2:00:50). Crawford: "So that 668,000 [688,000] was divvied up among God knows where." (2:01:31).	MEDIUM
2:02:04	Substitute pay	Substitute pay down 125,000; Henry expects about 150,000 to 160,000 to be spent (2:02:16). Crawford proposes a flat daily rate and asks for neighbouring districts' rates; Sprague cites a Vermont posting at "$260 a day" for a long-term certified substitute (2:05:56).
2:06:13	An inventory of budget errors for the public	Whitney: "I think it is very important that we know the volume or the number of potential errors that impacted our impacting our budget numbers, past and present." (2:06:40) and "The reason why we're having this an open session is to be utterly transparent to the community" (2:08:03). Henry will "pick out some of the really high discrepancy lines" first (2:08:45).	POSITIVE
2:16:08	Board fees, legal, psychologists	Crawford: "we do not have any compensation for being on the school board." The school-board fees line is explained as background checks and similar fees. Psychological services up 92,000 (2:17:14) to hire a district psychologist instead of contracted services at "about $200 an hour" (2:20:02), offset by a "$198,000 reduction" in contracted services (2:20:26).
2:20:50	A grieved secretary position	Sprague says a secretary position placed in the SAU budget was grieved and returned to Claremont; Henry had it the other way round and will move it into the Claremont budget (2:22:24).
2:31:10	Technology: integrator, copiers, E-Rate	Small proposes a technology integrator; Sprague: "It's Tammy Morse's old job basically." (2:32:16), and asks why the assistant to the assistant superintendent was not to cover it. Copiers up $90,000 against technology equipment down 127,000 (2:35:56); E-Rate pays "70%, we pay 30" (2:37:12).
2:37:21	Summing up	Workers' compensation "was a budgeting error" (2:38:00). Sprague: "the vast majority of our questions have been who? Who is under that line?" (2:39:31).	OBSERVATION
2:40:01	Middle-school teaching-load change	Sprague supports teachers "teaching four classes instead of three" and says "this is really the first I've heard of it" (2:41:00). Whitney wants the community to "digest this before we have our deliberative session" (2:41:11). Asked whether teachers have been told, Henry: "That the I can't go into." (2:42:54).
2:43:21	Calendar	Crawford: "I do think we need at least another finance committee." Henry: "I don't feel comfortable with doing the 13 as your final" and the hearing is January 3 (2:44:32). Whitney: "So we'll have to have CCTV be available." (2:49:55). Dates set as in the order of business above.
2:52:06	Tax rate and the grand list	Crawford reports that a dollar on the tax rate now takes "a million a little more", from a conversation with Yuji (possibly the city manager; not established) (2:52:40). Henry expects little tax-rate effect because of higher adequacy aid, while warning the statewide education tax will rise (2:55:50, 2:56:09).
2:55:12	Off air, still recording	"Okay off air, but you're still being recorded." The last five minutes stay on the Cablecast recording.
2:56:37	A members-only session on December 18	Whitney: "For a caucus. I would like it still to be recorded and we can have a discussion." (2:56:44). Crawford: "We need to talk among ourselves to make sure we've got our stories straight for the 20." (2:58:03). Henry is told she may attend.	OBSERVATION
2:59:30	Close	Sprague: "one of the worst things that can happen is for the subcommittee or a committee to be operating separate from" the board (2:59:50); Whitney: by recording, "Everybody has an opportunity to" follow (3:00:03).

Items flagged for review

These flags are a reviewer's aid, not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each one cites the rule it rests on as that rule read on December 1, 2023; check the recording and the primary source before relying on any of them. Severity: HIGH, a likely breach of a binding rule or a missed statutory deadline; MEDIUM, a probable process gap or control weakness; OBSERVATION, notable with no confirmed rule; POSITIVE, practice beyond the legal minimum.

HIGH A public body met for three hours on the district budget with no notice, agenda or minutes in any district share

The Finance Committee is a committee of the school board and therefore a public body: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) reaches any board of a school district "or any committee, subcommittee, or subordinate body thereof" (statute). All three members met and deliberated on the budget. RSA 91-A:2, II requires a notice posted "at least 24 hours, excluding Sundays and legal holidays, prior to such meetings" and minutes "open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting" (statute). The session was set aloud on the November 30 recording, which is not a posted notice, and the board's November 15 minutes list no Finance Committee dates under future dates. MAP.md records no notice, packet or minutes in either share (checked 2026-08-28, including the next board meeting's folder and keyword searches). The record offers two partial answers, neither of which is minutes: the business administrator asks at 2:54:52 whether Chelsea "did you get it all?", which suggests notes were being taken, and the December 6 approved board minutes report only that "Sessions have been recorded on CCTV" (minutes' wording). A recording is public, but it is not the minutes the statute requires. Graded HIGH under the project's rule for unmitigated absences: nothing says minutes were produced or where they went, and the deadline passed years ago. This matches the grading of the committee's December 6 and December 18 sessions.

Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d) (committees are public bodies); RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification; notice and five-business-day minutes); approved board minutes, December 6, 2023, item 4(b); draft board minutes, November 15, 2023 (future dates)

MEDIUM The current-year budget carries a negative $688,426.17 line nobody can explain, and line-level errors make the comparison column unreliable

The business administrator reports a line "called board voted expense reductions that was a negative number of $688,426.17 loaded into the budget", for which she "can't find any notes" and which she and her predecessor could not trace (2:00:19); she proposes to leave it as "one of those anomalies" (2:00:50) and supposes it "was the number that was used to make your budget balance" (2:01:41). The same session surfaces other lines in the FY24 base or the FY25 draft that the business office itself calls wrong: an unfilled guidance salary "left in the budget the previous year" (0:08:40), new lines showing a zero percent change (0:56:13), a special-education salary line that Whitney calls "A budgeting error" with Henry's assent (0:52:07), one social worker counted in two places (1:50:58), workers' compensation that "was a budgeting error" (2:38:00), and, by the high-school principal's account, a substitute line and $40,000 for town fields "taken out after I submitted the budget" (1:13:18, 1:13:36) with no record shown of who removed them. RSA 32:5, IV requires the budget form to carry comparative columns of prior-year appropriations and expenditures (statute); it does not require every line to reconcile, so no breach is shown. But a comparison column the preparer cannot tie to the appropriation is a control weakness, and the committee was using it to judge every FY2025 increase. The members asked for an account of the errors (flag 5), and the figure recurs on the committee's December 18 recording (see that page). The budget sent to hearing on December 20 is outside this page's record.

Sources: RSA 32:5, IV (2023 codification; comparative columns); Finance Committee, December 18, 2023 page

OBSERVATION A members-only caucus is planned for December 18 "to make sure we've got our stories straight"

Whitney proposes that the three members meet on December 18 "For a caucus" and adds "I would like it still to be recorded and we can have a discussion." (2:56:44); Crawford: "We need to talk among ourselves to make sure we've got our stories straight for the 20." (2:58:03). A quorum of the committee convened to discuss the budget is a meeting under RSA 91-A:2, I whatever it is called, and the caucus exclusion in I(c) covers only "A caucus consisting of elected members of a public body of the same political party who were elected on a partisan basis" (statute). School board members are elected on the non-partisan ballot that RSA 671:30 requires, so the exclusion is not available. The plan itself breaches nothing, and Whitney's insistence that it be recorded points the right way: the December 18 session was televised (show 15451). That recording ends with the chair saying the members need to caucus; see that page.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I and I(c) (2023 codification); RSA 671:30 (non-partisan ballot for school district officers); Finance Committee, December 18, 2023 page

OBSERVATION The budget binder the committee worked from is not published, and it lacks the staffing detail the members needed

Every question is put by page and account number in a binder the public cannot see, so a viewer cannot follow the figures being read. The November 15 board minutes record that the business administrator would share the budget books with the Finance Committee when ready (minutes' wording); none is in a district share for this date. Within the room the members say the binder lacks what earlier years supplied: "the lack of detail in what we're being presented here" (1:04:04) and "the vast majority of our questions have been who? Who is under that line?" (2:39:31). RSA 91-A:4, I makes such working papers public records available on request; no rule required posting them, so this is an observation.

Sources: RSA 91-A:4, I (right to inspect governmental records); draft board minutes, November 15, 2023, item IV.2

POSITIVE A televised working session, with members asking for the budget's errors to be laid out in public

No rule required a committee working session to be televised. This one was, for three hours, with the principals and the business administrator answering line by line. Whitney asked for "the aggregate potential, you know, errors that were in the budget that impacted the tax rate one way or the other" (2:07:27) because "I think we owe it to the public, to, to talk about it." (2:06:56), and both she and Crawford made clear the errors predated the business administrator (2:06:13, 2:07:06). The members asked that their later members-only session be recorded too (2:56:44), and the chair closed on keeping the full board informed (2:59:50).

Sources: RSA 91-A:2 (2023 codification; what the statute requires, which televising exceeds)

Appendix: source files

Official and public sources

Cablecast: Claremont School Board Finance Committee - 12/1/23 (Claremont Community Television (CCTV) / Claremont Community Media Center (CCMC); title as MAP.md records it)
No notice, agenda, packet or minutes found. MAP.md section 212 records the search of the 2023 Meeting Documents archive, both candidate year folders of the Meeting Minutes share, the next board meeting's folder and keyword searches (2026-08-28); a title search for the date on 2026-10-03 returned only the 27. CSB 12.6.23 and SAU 6 packet folders. Search results are not proof of absence; this is "not found", not "does not exist".
Context documents: draft CSB Meeting Minutes 11.1.23.docx (1).pdf (committee renamed); draft CSB Meeting Minutes 11.15.23.docx (1) (2).pdf (budget timeline item, future dates); CSB Agenda 12.6.23.docx (1).pdf (administration masthead); 20. Approved CSB minutes 12.6.23.pdf (Finance Sub-Committee report)
Related pages: Finance Committee, November 30, 2023; Finance Committee, December 6, 2023; Finance Committee, December 13, 2023; Finance Committee, December 18, 2023; Claremont School Board, December 20, 2023

Project files

Working files this page was built from. The dialogue file is linked; the others are not published with the page.

Dialogue/15444 SchoolBoardFinance120123.mp4.CSV (1,762 attributed rows; the basis of this page)
Input/Videos/15444 SchoolBoardFinance120123.mp4 (local copy of the recording)
Input/Transcripts/15444 SchoolBoardFinance120123.mp4.json (diarized transcript)
Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md, section 212 (video-to-document map)

Laws and rules cited on this page

State, as codified for the meeting date: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, I, I(c) and II (2023 codification; source note ends 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023); RSA 91-A:4, I; RSA 671:30; RSA 32:5, IV (2023 codification)