Participants
No agenda or minutes exist for this meeting, so names come from the recording and from the committee membership Crawford stated at the December 6 board meeting. The committee's three members were all present.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Frank Sprague | Committee chair; board vice chair | Opens the session (0:00:10); questions the high school schedule's dropout rationale (0:20:03) and the $333,000 middle-school line (0:31:36); raises the delayed tax rate (0:37:40); lists what the board has received in past years, including tax impact, grants, state aid and Medicaid projections (0:44:22); worries the support-staff contracts will become "sacrificial lambs" on the ballot (0:46:11); "I cannot support moving anything forward unless I know where specifically the money is going as far as staffing goes" (1:29:51). |
| Heather Whitney | Committee member; board chair | Asks for the numbers to be "crystal clear" before the hearing (0:09:08); asks whether the $300,000 middle-school increase stands after reallocation (0:27:58); reads what she calls the Ed 306 counselor ratios (0:54:23); "testimonials are for church" (0:43:58); "it cannot be testimonial. It has to be quantitative" (1:32:41). |
| Candace Crawford | Committee member | Questions the middle-school plan's standing with teachers and the union (0:13:30); compares the three elementary budgets (0:49:21); questions preschool oversight and a $100,000 impact against a $60,000 handout (1:04:16, 1:12:10). |
| Michael Tempesta | Superintendent, SAU 6 | Presents the middle-school schedule scenario (0:01:19): "you wouldn't need to fill eight positions" (0:03:06); "I'm not saying that we are definitely going to reduce eight positions" (0:15:34); says the schedule change must be impact-bargained with the teachers' association (0:13:41). |
| Ben Nester | Director of Special Education, SAU 6 | Explains the preschool move to modular units (1:03:13); recommends a special education coordinator in lieu of a preschool director (1:06:48); on the preschool handout, "That doesn't make sense to me either" (1:12:35); describes an accreditation study through the National Association for the Education of Young Children (1:14:47). |
| Mary Henry | Business Administrator, SAU 6 | Explains the late filings with the Department of Revenue Administration (0:38:38); "The bottom line of the budget is correct" but "The allocation within those squirrely" (1:29:31, 1:29:39); "I don't do projections on grants" (1:30:48). |
| Unidentified | Various | 19 rows, mostly short responses; one explains that Title-funded staff exist only while Title funds do (1:31:09). |
Order of business (reconstructed)
No agenda was posted or located, so the list below is reconstructed from the chair's opening and the transitions in the recording.
Topics in the order taken up; no motions or votes were made.
| Taken up | Item | Disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:31 | Administration's weekend email on high school and middle school schedule changes | Discussion of the middle-school scenario; committee asks for the $333,000 cut and $300,000 increase to be broken out (0:32:44). No action. |
| 0:20:03 | High school schedule rationale | Discussion only. |
| 0:37:40 | Why the tax rate has not been set | Henry's account of the late filings. See flag 2. |
| 0:44:22 | What the committee expects to receive | Tax impact, grants, state aid, Medicaid, special education aid, position breakdowns, default budget. |
| 0:49:21 | Elementary budgets and staffing equity | Discussion only. |
| 1:00:51 | Schedule for December 18 and 20 | Committee session on the 18th, board presentation on the 20th. |
| 1:02:21 | Preschool | Discussion; Nester to clean up the preschool budget sheet (1:13:15). |
| 1:27:02 | Wrap-up: what the committee needs before December 18 | Requests for revenue figures, staffing detail and tax impact. Recording ends at 1:37:22 without an adjournment. |
Discussion timeline
Times are taken from the dialogue transcript (Dialogue/15471 SchoolBoardFinance121323.mp4.CSV) and link into the recording.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:00:10 | Opening | Sprague: "Welcome everyone to the latest installment of our, Finance Subcommittee or Finance Committee meeting. We have had the Whitney back with us". | HIGH |
| 0:01:19 | Middle-school schedule scenario | Tempesta: middle-school academic teachers now teach three classes; with a six-class schedule like the high school's and four teachers per core subject instead of six, "you wouldn't need to fill eight positions. Now some of those positions are already vacant, i.e. the math and science teachers that we haven't been able to find" (0:03:06). Social studies example: six teachers, 18 sections, 332 students of 338 (0:04:25). "it is not typical that a middle school with three grades has almost as many teachers as a high school with four" (0:08:23). | |
| 0:13:30 | Teachers and the union | Tempesta: "We know that we have to impact bargain, the specific schedule changes" and "I have a meeting with them tomorrow" (0:13:41); teachers were told through Principal Romeo and "were concerned" (0:14:51). "I'm not saying that we are definitely going to reduce eight positions" (0:15:34). Crawford: "if we got so many teachers, why are we having seventh grade science and math being taught on computers?" (0:17:22). | |
| 0:20:03 | High school schedule | Sprague, recalling Newport "back in the early 90s", doubts the dropout rationale: "The the continuity is the reason to do it. Yeah. Not the dropout rate." (0:22:04); "let's sell it for what it is" (0:24:12). | |
| 0:26:46 | $333,000 cut, $300,000 increase | Whitney: "the impact to the budget was going to be a $300,000 increase to the budget" (0:27:58). Sprague, from the binder ("tab 50, page 15"): "I'm showing the cut of 333,000" and "an increase of 300,000" (0:31:36). Crawford: the increase is described as summer school and CMS deans; "I don't want to replace the 333,000 who are academics with nonacademic" (0:32:26). Tempesta: "we need to break that out so you can see all of it. So it's unclear in this." (0:32:44). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:33:27 | Support staff and ESSER | Crawford: "if s are paid for it, great. But I don't want to accept the cost of that" (0:34:01). Whitney recalls asking, when the academic center was approved, that the administration "start planning now for phasing this out" once ESSER ended (0:43:20); "testimonials are for church" (0:43:58). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:37:40 | The tax rate | Sprague: city councilors told residents "we're waiting on the school district" (0:38:00). Henry: "I turned in the stuff yesterday. I was waiting on getting a signed copy of the certified ballot, and also a signed copy of minutes from the deliberative that I did not have." (0:38:38); "a lot of these things should have been uploaded back in March and April. So. And they weren't uploaded." (0:39:46); "I understand we're late. I get it" (0:40:13). The city could issue bills "within a week" (0:41:03). | HIGH |
| 0:44:22 | What the board used to receive | Sprague: "a proposed tax rate impact", grants, state aid, "Medicaid reimbursements, projections", special education aid (0:44:22); support-staff contracts in separate warrant articles may become "sacrificial lambs" (0:46:11). Whitney: the teachers' agreement "is two years" (0:47:34). | OBSERVATION |
| 0:49:21 | Elementary staffing | Crawford: a social worker shared so that it "leaves one day a week at each school" (0:50:53); each school asks for a full-time social worker; field trips budgeted at one school only (0:51:53); Maple Avenue salaries down from lower steps; Bluff "58,000 has been added" (0:53:35). | |
| 0:54:23 | Counselor ratios | Whitney, reading what she calls "the 306 requirements": elementary counseling load "should not exceed the equivalent of one full time certified school counselor per 500", middle and high school "per 300 students", and an assistant principal in schools of 500 or more (0:54:54). Enrollments as Crawford reads them: Disnard 256, Maple 269, Bluff 176 (0:55:50). This page did not verify the rule text in force on December 13, 2023. | |
| 1:00:51 | December 18 "caucus" | Whitney: "The caucus on the 18th is just us." (1:01:21); Sprague: "Oh, it's just us three." (1:01:30); "the caucus is on the 18th where we're going to try to hash out what our recommendations are" (1:01:36). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:02:21 | Preschool move | Crawford: four classrooms "purchased this year with Esser money not in the budget". Nester: two units of two classrooms, "But we're still only budgeted for three classrooms total for pre-K" (1:03:13). No preschool director; principals to oversee (1:04:16). Nester: "we should hire a special ed coordinator" in lieu of a director (1:06:48), yet "Absolutely. We should have a director for pre-K 100%." (1:07:16). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:08:36 | What the preschool is for | Whitney: it "exists exclusively to serve our special education population" (1:08:36). Sprague: "we are we're not required to have a program. True just for special ed" (1:09:53). Nester: "legally, you might be able to get away with that" (1:10:25); outside programs "don't exist" (1:10:48). About 35 special education students (1:24:51). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:12:10 | Preschool handout | Crawford: the handout "pre-K proposed budget FY 2425 ... wasn't in the packet", shows "the total increase is 60,000. And yet this says 100,000"; teacher salaries "down 10,000, but Perry's up 61,000" [paras] (1:12:45). Nester: "That doesn't make sense to me either" (1:12:35). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:13:53 | Preschool study | Nester: an independent study; NAEYC accreditation "is a two year process" (1:14:47); "the cost is minimal. We're talking 2000 bucks" (1:16:21). Henry: at her former district principals oversee pre-K (1:25:15). | |
| 1:27:02 | Wrap-up and revenue side | Sprague: "the revenue side we haven't we have not seen" and "I don't have a sense of at all of what's left with SR" (1:28:02). Crawford: tab eight, page 55, shows "a million 316 as an increase over last year's budget" (1:28:32). Henry: "I will be getting you a new report" (1:29:05); "I don't do projections on grants" (1:30:48). | OBSERVATION |
| 1:32:08 | Committee's conditions | Whitney: "I need to have be able to connect the dots between the requests and academic achievement" and "I will I'm a no for anything that doesn't have that" (1:32:41). Crawford: "I don't want the support staff to be running the show" (1:33:41). Sprague asks for the tax impact per dollar (1:35:43). | POSITIVE |
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 13, 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; OBSERVATION, notable with no confirmed rule; POSITIVE, practice beyond the legal minimum.
HIGH No minutes of this Finance Committee meeting exist in any district share
A committee of a school board is itself 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, or advisory committee thereto". RSA 91-A:2, II requires minutes of every meeting, including "the names of members, persons appearing before the public bodies, and a brief description of the subject matter discussed and final decisions", "promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting." All three committee members met here with the superintendent, the special education director and the business administrator for more than an hour and a half on the FY2025 budget (0:00:10 onward). MAP.md records that no packet, notice or minutes for this meeting are in the main packets share, the 2023 Meeting Documents archive, either candidate year folder of the Meeting Minutes share or the next board meeting's packet, checked three ways on 2026-08-28; a title search for the date on 2026-10-03 found nothing from a district share either. The same is true of every 2023–24 Finance Committee session. Nothing on the record says minutes were kept elsewhere. Under the project's rule for missing records this is the unmitigated limb: a public body met and no minutes exist in any district share, so the five-business-day deadline was missed. The recording is a public account of the meeting, but it is not minutes and the statute does not treat it as one.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2, II (2023 codification; source note ends 2023, 188:1, eff. Oct. 3, 2023)
HIGH The business administrator says the documents the state needed to set the tax rate were filed eight months late
Asked why the tax rate had not been set, Henry said: "I turned in the stuff yesterday. I was waiting on getting a signed copy of the certified ballot, and also a signed copy of minutes from the deliberative that I did not have." (0:38:38), and "a lot of these things should have been uploaded back in March and April. So. And they weren't uploaded." (0:39:46); "I understand we're late." (0:40:13). RSA 21-J:34, II requires the governing body of each school district to file a report that shall "certify the appropriations voted by the meeting of the appropriate legislative body", and "This report shall be filed within 20 days of the close of the meeting." For official-ballot districts, RSA 21-J:34, IV-a requires "the minutes of any meeting or any deliberative session ... at which any appropriations may be amended, voted, or rescinded" to be certified by the clerk and "filed within 20 days after the date of the close of the meeting". The 2023 deliberative session was February 8 and the ballot vote March 14, 2023, so both 20-day periods ended in early 2023; Henry places the filing on December 12. Mitigation stated on tape: Henry arrived in July 2023 and says the failure "goes on, both of us because I didn't follow up" (0:39:02); the March and April deadlines fell before her tenure, during the business-office changeover. The consequence described on tape is a delayed city tax bill; Crawford notes tax bills normally arrive December 1 (0:39:07). The page relies on Henry's account; the Department of Revenue Administration's filing record would confirm the dates.
Sources: RSA 21-J:34, II and IV-a (2023 codification; source note ends 2007, 182:2, eff. April 1, 2007)
OBSERVATION The committee was working from budget documents their own preparers called unclear, without the revenue side
Three documents were questioned and none was defended as it stood. The middle-school line shows a $333,000 cut beside a $300,000 increase; Tempesta: "we need to break that out so you can see all of it. So it's unclear in this." (0:32:44). The preschool handout, which "wasn't in the packet", shows a $60,000 increase against a stated $100,000 impact; Nester: "That doesn't make sense to me either" (1:12:35). On the FY2024 comparison column Henry says "The bottom line of the budget is correct" but "The allocation within those squirrely" (1:29:39), the same caveat members gave the full board on December 6. Sprague says the committee has not seen "the revenue side", grant projections or "what's left with SR" [ESSER] (1:28:02). With no agenda, minutes or packet for the committee, the binder and handouts are not in any public share, so a reader cannot check these figures. No figure here is shown to be a misstatement, so no rule or accounting standard is applied; RSA 32:5, IV's comparative columns and the binder pages named on tape ("tab 50, page 15"; "tab eight ... page 55") are what a reviewer would check.
Sources: Dialogue/15471 SchoolBoardFinance121323.mp4.CSV; RSA 32:5, IV (2023 codification; comparative columns)
OBSERVATION Whether the district must run its own preschool was asked and left open
Sprague asked whether, "truly, truly bare bones", the district is "only obligated to provide services" to preschool children with disabilities rather than run a program (1:09:53); Nester answered "legally, you might be able to get away with that" (1:10:25) and that outside programs "don't exist" locally (1:10:48). Under IDEA a district must make a free appropriate public education available to "all children residing in the State between the ages of 3 and 21, inclusive", which for about 35 preschool children (1:24:51) is a duty the district carries however it delivers the services. The regulation does not require any particular program model, so the members' question is a placement and cost question, not one of legal minimums. The record also shows the special education director both proposing to replace the preschool director with a coordinator (1:08:22) and saying "We should have a director for pre-K 100%." (1:07:16).
Sources: 34 CFR 300.101(a) (FAPE for children aged 3 through 21)
OBSERVATION The committee's next session was planned as a "caucus" of its three members
Whitney: "The caucus on the 18th is just us." and "the caucus is on the 18th where we're going to try to hash out what our recommendations are" (1:01:21, 1:01:36). All three members of a public body's committee meeting to form recommendations is a meeting under RSA 91-A:2, I, and the only caucus exclusion there, I(c), is for members "of the same political party who were elected on a partisan basis"; Claremont board members are elected on the non-partisan ballot RSA 671:30 requires, so the word cannot take the session outside the statute. The December 18 session was in fact recorded and broadcast (show 15451), so this is an Observation about the label, not a finding about what happened.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I and I(c) (2023 codification); RSA 671:30
POSITIVE A line-by-line budget review held on camera, with administrators answering in public
The committee's review of staffing scenarios, the preschool plan and the late tax filings was recorded and broadcast by Claremont Community Television (CCTV) / Claremont Community Media Center (CCMC). RSA 91-A requires a public body's committee to meet in public; it does not require recording or broadcast. Members also set a public standard for their own votes: Whitney, "it cannot be testimonial. It has to be quantitative" (1:32:41); Sprague, "I cannot support moving anything forward unless I know where specifically the money is going as far as staffing goes" (1:29:51). The positive practice does not cure the missing minutes in flag 1.
Sources: RSA 91-A:1-a, VI(d); RSA 91-A:2 (2023 codification)
Appendix: source files
Official and public sources
- Cablecast: School Board Finance Mtg 12/13/23 (Claremont Community Television (CCTV) / Claremont Community Media Center (CCMC); title as MAP.md records it)
- No packet, notice, agenda or minutes located. MAP.md section 216 records the checks of 2026-08-28: the main packets share (which has never carried a Finance Committee folder), the 2023 Meeting Documents archive, both candidate year folders of the Meeting Minutes share, the next board meeting's packet folder, and keyword searches. A Drive title search for the date on 2026-10-03 returned only a file in the maintainer's own account, not district material. These are negatives from a search of the district's shares, not proof that no document was ever made.
- Documents named on tape but not in any public share: the committee's budget binder ("tab 50, page 15"; "tab eight ... page 55"), the administration's weekend email and "CMS schedule change impact document", and the handout "pre-K proposed budget FY 2425".
- Related pages: Claremont School Board, December 6, 2023 (committee membership and the announcement of this meeting); Finance Committee, December 6, 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.
Laws and rules cited on this page