Participants
Everyone heard or recorded as present. Names and roles follow the approved minutes and the agenda masthead; where the dialogue file labels a person differently, the label is noted.
| Name | Role | Participation |
|---|
| Heather Whitney | Board Chair; Finance Subcommittee | Presided. Moved the amended bottom line of $42,957,713 with a $44,449,704 default budget; withdrew her own plan for a separate athletics article; argued efficiencies over cuts and that “the reason why we are in this financial crisis is because we’ve had abysmal administrators.” |
| Michael Petrin | Vice Chair; Capital Improvement Subcommittee chair | Seconded the budget amendment (minutes); called the budget cap a “Real threat”; moved the Bluff and 52 Maple Avenue articles; said he could support some cap but not this one. |
| Arlene Hawkins | Board member; Policy Subcommittee chair | Voted against the amended budget; asked what the new bottom line would cost in positions; moved the administrators’ article and its recommendation; the sole vote against the chief-education-officer model; carried EHLB and JLCK. |
| Candace Crawford | Board member; Finance Subcommittee chair | Voted against the amended budget; said $865,000 could not be found in 24 hours; pressed for athletics as a separate warrant article; asked that the job description say it wants an educational leader. |
| William “Bill” Madden | Board member; Ad Hoc Leadership Search Committee chair | Voted for the amended budget; raised the $389,000 LED-lighting obligation; read counsel’s opinion on superintendent services; the only vote against open enrollment and the only abstention on the cap. |
| Frank Sprague | Board member | Voted for the amended budget; moved the trust-fund acceptance, the Byrne donation, the default budget and the chief-education-officer model (minutes); said “trusting the administration has gotten us in a lot of trouble.” |
| Loren Howard | Board member | Voted against the amended budget; moved open enrollment, EHLB and the motion not to recommend the budget cap; raised the Masons’ time capsule at 52 Maple Avenue. |
| Noelle Kronberg | School Board Clerk | Called the roll (0:00:40), kept time for comments, produced the minutes. |
| Kerry Kennedy | Interim Superintendent, SAU 6 | Presented the $10,000 Byrne Foundation donation and the preschool referral figures; answered on bus drivers and social-emotional programmes. |
| Matt Angell | Senior Comptroller / Interim Business Administrator | Led the trust-proceeds hearing; set out both budget options and the January 26 MS-26 posting deadline; read every warrant article; relayed counsel’s advice on an athletics article by text during the meeting. |
| Jason Bonneville | Interim Technology Director | Reported the software audit, data-protection agreements, a public software list on the website, and a planned public-notice board. |
| Kristina Sanford | PreK coordinator (minutes) | Described the drop-in preschool services and a caseload of 36 students with IEPs. Labeled “Christina Sanford” in the dialogue file. |
| Eric Peabody | Citizens’ comments — Ward 2 | Asked whether a passed cap would cut 2027–28 and later budgets by about $9 million; Angell: “Yes.” |
| Michael Demars | Citizens’ comments — Ward 3 | Corrected his own figure on principal pay while standing by his view of the benefits. Labeled “Mike” in the dialogue file (“Mike. Tomorrow’s ward three”); named in the minutes. |
| Don Lavalette | Citizens’ comments — Ward 2 | Asked about using bus drivers in schools by day; later spoke for an aligned model and on the master-teacher programme. The minutes spell it “Lavallette”. |
| Nick Koloski | Citizens’ comments — Ward 3 | Asked members to speak up; later called a separate athletics article “really cowardly”. Labeled “Nick” in the dialogue file; surname from the minutes. |
| Rob Walker | Citizens’ comments — Ward 1 | Asked the board to inform voters on the tax cap and to “show us the value”, and whether charges were being pursued against the former business administrator (minutes’ wording); no answer is recorded. |
| Wayne Hemingway | Citizens’ comments — “as a taxpayer” | Supported the reduced figure with sports kept in; pointed to unfilled positions and Bluff utility costs. |
| Tom Luther | Citizens’ comments — Ward 1 | Said the cap was brought because the board resisted community input; suggested trusting the administration with a bottom line. |
Named on the record but not present: district counsel James O’Shaughnessy of Drummond Woodsum (advice read aloud and relayed by text; the minutes spell him “O’Shaughnessay”), CMS volunteer athletic director Sean LaPlante, and the Jack and Dorothy Byrne Foundation. Twelve rows are labeled Unidentified speaker and four Unidentified board member, mostly seconds and short responses.
Agenda
Items as posted in “1.21.26 CSB Meeting Agenda (3).pdf” and reproduced in the approved minutes, with the time each was taken up. Motions, seconds and tallies follow the minutes; the recording carries them as voice votes.
| Taken up | Item | Agenda text / disposition |
|---|
| 0:00:04 | I–II. Call to order; roll call | Roll at 0:00:40; minutes: “All present”. |
| 0:00:49 | III. Public hearing: “Receipt and Spending of Trust Proceeds” | $134,883.11 from the City’s Trustees of Trust Funds. No public comment. Sprague moved, Crawford seconded; voice vote at 0:03:40, “Any nays? One. Any abstentions? None.” in the transcript, where the minutes record “all present voting in favor”. Hearing closed at 0:03:50. See flag 7. |
| 0:03:50 | I.a Consent agenda: agenda; 1/7/26 minutes; manifest | Angell and Madden on an unexpected LED-lighting invoice (0:04:14); the manifest “Not available for the public for viewing because it has student names” (0:06:03). Minutes: “Consent acceptance”. See flag 4 and flag 5. |
| 0:06:41 | I.b Citizens’ comments | Peabody, Demars, Lavalette, Koloski, Walker. Closed at 0:12:22. |
| 0:12:22 | I.c Finance update | Deferred to the budget item: “I’m not going to spend much effort on this tonight”. |
| 0:12:51 | I.d Follow-up: technology audit; PreK services | Reports by Bonneville and by Kennedy and Sanford (0:21:03); no action. |
| 0:33:49 | II.1 Accept $10,000 donation for CMS spring athletics from the Byrne Foundation | Uniforms and equipment. Sprague moved “with gratitude”, Howard seconded; voice vote at 0:35:38, unanimous (minutes). |
| 0:36:22 | II.2 Finalize and adopt proposed budget for deliberative session | Options presented: four-school aligned model $44,844,373; current configuration $47,800,535. Whitney moved to amend the bottom line to $42,957,713 with a default budget of $44,449,704; Petrin seconded (minutes). Public comment at 1:37:31–1:46:42. Voice vote at 1:57:26; the transcript has the Chair say “Three ayes have it.” Minutes: in favour Whitney, Sprague, Petrin, Madden; opposed Howard, Crawford, Hawkins. See flag 1. |
| 1:58:55 | II.3 Default budget | $44,449,704. Sprague moved, Petrin seconded (minutes); voice vote at 1:59:34, unanimous. See flag 2. |
| 1:59:41 | II.4–5 Approve warrant; draft warrant articles | Officers article by consent; operating budget recommended by the earlier 4–3 vote (2:02:01); athletics article not added (2:06:10–2:08:55); administrators’ (CAA) cost items placed on the warrant unanimously and recommended 5–2, Whitney and Sprague opposed (2:14:49, 2:16:27); special-meeting article if CAA fails, unanimous (2:17:40); Bluff sale or lease, unanimous (2:19:59); 52 Maple Avenue sale or lease, unanimous (2:22:34); open enrollment added and recommended 6–1, Madden opposed (2:24:53); petitioned budget cap not recommended, six in favour of the motion, Madden abstaining (2:33:46). |
| 2:34:29 | II.6 Executive summary: executive leader search | Sprague moved to proceed with the “chief education officer” model, Howard seconded (minutes); voice vote at 3:01:24, 6–1, Hawkins opposed. See flag 3. |
| 3:01:46 | II.7 Subcommittee reports; policies | Capital Improvement to restart in March. Finance struck through in the minutes. EHLB moved from first read to adoption, Howard/Petrin, unanimous (3:04:54). FAA tabled. Revised JLCK to second read, Sprague/Whitney (minutes), at 3:07:36. Hawkins reported that policy DK on the website had not been the current version and has been corrected (3:07:56). |
| 3:08:28 | IV. Other business | “Set School Board Self-Evaluation Meeting per policy BAA” (agenda): no date set; the Chair offered a poll. Candidate filing January 21–30 (agenda); on the recording the Chair says “beginning on January 24th”. |
| 3:09:35 | V–VI. Future dates; adjournment | Deliberative session February 7, 9 a.m., Stevens (snow date Monday, February 9, 7 p.m.). Adjournment by consent at 3:10:41; minutes: 9:40 p.m. |
Discussion timeline
Chronological topics. Quotations are from the dialogue transcript as transcribed; bracketed text is an insertion or correction.
| Time | Topic | What was said | Flags |
|---|
| 0:01:06 | Trust proceeds read into the record | “We received $134,883.11 from the Trustees of Trust funds, and it’s comprised up of five different trusts.” At 0:01:55 he sets aside the Burbee share, “$8,219.50 and spread it amongst all the elementary school and middle schoolers”. Madden: they have done that “For every year.” Angell at 0:02:25: “Yeah. Probably not the last two years.” | POSITIVE |
| 0:04:14 | A $389,000 surprise on the manifest | Angell: “an invoice came in for LED lighting this past week.” Madden at 0:05:18: “So we have somehow we were obligated to $389,000. On its face, it seems like there’s a contract and somebody signed for it.” He asks to return to it under the budget; the recording does not show that happening. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:05:50 | Is the manifest public? | Whitney: “the manifest is available for viewing by the public.” Angell at 0:06:03: “Not available for the public for viewing because it has student names.” Whitney: “I thought that was going to be redacted. I apologize.” | OBSERVATION |
| 0:07:02 | What the budget cap would do | Peabody: “if the proposed budget cap passes the budget for the following year, which is 2728, and all subsequent years will be cut by approximately $9 million. Is that true?” Angell: Yes. | |
| 0:08:03 | A citizen corrects himself | Demars: “the actual number that Claremont pays its administrative staff is about the average. However, I do stand by the fact that the benefit package that the administrative staff receives is far above average.” | |
| 0:09:24 | Bus drivers by day | Lavalette: could drivers work “at the middle school, in the lunchroom during the middle of the day?” | |
| 0:10:10 | Acoustics | Koloski: “The board could speak up the acoustics in here. Horrible.” Whitney at 0:11:59: improvements carried “the large dollar number” the board did not feel it could spend. | |
| 0:10:37 | “Show us the value” | Walker urges the board to invest in “educating the public beyond the bottom line”; at 0:11:36: “So show us the value, if you can, in any means.” His question about charges against the former business administrator gets no answer on the record. | |
| 0:14:23 | Technology audit, in public | Bonneville at 0:15:36: the software list “is a tool that is publicly available. It’s already on the website.” It shows buildings, age groups and expiration dates; a public-notice board is planned (0:17:20). | POSITIVE |
| 0:21:07 | Preschool referrals | Kennedy: “we’ve had total 30 referrals this year. We’ve had 19 meetings.” Sanford at 0:22:00: “Currently, I have 36 students on my caseload who have an IEP”; at 0:27:35: “not having a program to practice those skills in is a big concern of mine.” | |
| 0:32:04 | An unanswered request for FTEs | Sprague asks how many FTEs of related services work with preschool; asked how long he has been asking: “Almost continuously.” Angell at 0:33:24: “He made that request a while ago.” | |
| 0:34:02 | $10,000 for CMS spring athletics | Uniforms that are “dated, old torn”; “we’re not looking for the local budget.” Accepted at 0:35:38. | POSITIVE |
| 0:36:33 | The two options | “the for school line model. And it was at $44,844,373. The option B was for the current configuration, $47,800,535.” Tax rates at 0:37:14: $18.48 and $21.20. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:43:49 | The Chair’s amendment | Cuts named: “all of the interventionists which was a total of six. Two of the instructional coaches, one school psychologist, which is a vacant position and one guidance counselor, and that did not get to a budget neutral at all.” At 0:44:47 she drops a separate athletics article as “putting a gun to people’s heads”. Motion at 0:47:34: “42,957,713”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:50:21 | The athletics figure | Crawford asks the cost of athletics; Angell: “863.” Crawford at 0:51:44: “I could support that that amendment. If if people agreed to have the sports on a separate warrant article”. At 0:55:19: “just over the past 24 hours, to find another 865,000 is pretty unreasonable”. | OBSERVATION |
| 0:58:31 | What the number costs in positions | Hawkins confirms the named posts are vacant; at 0:59:28: “I thought that whatever wherever we went, there would have been input from the finance committee.” Angell at 1:00:24: “You’re looking at another six positions”; “To seven.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:12:47 | The cap as a threat | Petrin: “The budget cap of putting in the $35 million budget means the potential of shutting this building down from the tech center and turning it into an elementary school. The threat is real.” Madden at 1:19:31: “I don’t think it’s a threat. I think a lot of people want that.” | |
| 1:18:06 | Efficiencies that are not people | Sprague: insurance contributions and extended school year “which was 35,000 last year, and it’s 120,000”; at 1:18:37: “I came up with about a half $1 million. And those are efficiencies. The money is in the employees.” | |
| 1:25:26 | The arithmetic restated | Angell: “the budget starts out at $44,844,373. The motion that Heather made would reduce the budget by $1,886,660, so the result would be $42,957,713.” At 1:25:56: “a half a percent below the current year operating budget.” Sprague at 1:26:20: “trusting the administration has gotten us in a lot of trouble.” Whitney: “I think the board’s gotten us into a lot of trouble to.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:32:02 | An amendment to the amendment, withdrawn | Crawford offers to add “a word article to support athletics”; the Chair will not take it as friendly and advises her to vote the motion down instead (1:33:08). | |
| 1:37:31 | Public comment on the motion | Lavalette for an aligned model. Hemingway at 1:39:32: “Keeping the sports in there is a good idea.” Koloski at 1:43:14: a separate athletics article is “really cowardly”. Luther at 1:43:59: “We finally found a tool to get you to listen to us.” | |
| 1:47:16 | The MS-26 deadline and athletics at $1 | Angell: “We have to have that done by January 22nd. By law.” Corrected at 1:47:38: “I mean not 22nd, 26th.” At 1:48:59: the MS-26 “is the budgeted expenditures by line item.” At 1:55:05: “What’s on the document is based upon my conversations with with board members thinking how the meeting was going to fall”. At 1:56:42: “I think it would be dishonest to the voters, if I just say, yep, it’s going to run.” | OBSERVATION |
| 1:57:26 | Budget adopted | Voice vote; the transcript reads “Three ayes have it.” The minutes record 4–3. Angell at 1:57:56: members must come in to sign a new MS-26; on the default budget, “I already have three signatures on it.” | OBSERVATION OBSERVATION |
| 2:00:27 | Ballot information read into the record | “we have to talk about the per pupil costs at $26,012.84.” At 2:01:03: “The Ela proficiency at 35%. Math proficiency at 25%. Science proficiency at 29%.” | POSITIVE |
| 2:06:10 | Counsel by text: the athletics article dropped | “I, I texted Jim O’Shaughnessy during the our attorney during Heather’s motion”; if the article were voted down, “their strong argument to have no athletics at all next year”. At 2:08:32: without the article “You preserve that power to move money in without any, any problems.” | OBSERVATION |
| 2:09:10 | Administrators’ contract | Year one $0; year two “The minimum increase is $25,871.82. The maximum is $103,487.25.” Sprague at 2:11:18: “we really need to start moving toward higher employee contributions to insurance.” Angell at 2:12:10 recommends separate votes to place and to recommend. | |
| 2:17:55 | Bluff and 52 Maple Avenue | Sale or lease of Bluff Elementary, then of 52 Maple Avenue (2:20:11). Howard at 2:21:36 on the Masons’ time capsule: “We did not find it.” | |
| 2:22:44 | Open enrollment article | Nonresident students up to 10% of each school’s enrollment, and 0% of residents to open-enrollment schools elsewhere. Madden: “I don’t like the idea of making them prisoners if we can’t get our stuff together.” Crawford at 2:23:41: “It just limits the liability for the Claremont School District.” | |
| 2:25:11 | Petitioned budget cap | Angell: “This is required to go on, so this is not a vote to go on.” At 2:27:27 he explains the $9 million estimate from the state form. Madden at 2:30:09: the board is “taking responsibility for our predecessors”. Petrin at 2:32:41: “I could support some sort of a budget cap, but the way this particular, warrant is written”. Not recommended; Madden abstains (2:34:04). | POSITIVE |
| 2:36:36 | Counsel on superintendent services | Madden reads counsel: RSA 194-C:5, II provides that a “School district shall not be required to have a superintendent, and may assign these services to one or more administrative personnel” (2:37:07). At 2:38:28: “because the district is no longer part of a multi district, saw decisions about Central Office personnel are squarely within the purview of the board”. | OBSERVATION |
| 2:47:04 | What the job description asks for | Hawkins: the qualifications ask for “master’s degree or higher with experience in educational administration, government administration, business administration, public health administration, nonprofit or related institutional administration”. Crawford at 2:49:07: “the second bullet says support curriculum development. I feel like it should lead.” | OBSERVATION |
| 2:49:23 | Who leads education | Sprague at 2:49:36: an educational leader is “the number two person.” Hawkins at 2:54:10: the assistant superintendent post was cut, “So there’s no position in there for the strong educational leader”. Whitney at 2:54:42: “the reason why we are in this financial crisis is because we’ve had abysmal administrators.” | OBSERVATION |
| 2:56:41 | The sentence later corrected | Hawkins: “I’m just saying when you put somebody in place who doesn’t have the correct experience.” The minutes of this meeting print her as worried about someone “with” the correct experience; see the February 4 page. | |
| 3:02:47 | Policies EHLB and JLCK | EHLB covers employees subpoenaed in their official duties; “Mostly it’s in reference to FERPA” (3:03:19). JLCK at 3:05:02: required “under. 0604 B15” [Ed 306.04(b)(15)]. | |
| 3:09:24 | Self-evaluation | “Do we have any bandwidth to set this, evaluation meeting, or would you like me to send out a Google?” Whitney at 3:09:35: “we have to have a done by the end of February.” | |
Items flagged for review
These flags are a reviewer’s aid. They are not findings of violation and not legal advice. Each flag cites the rule it rests on; an Observation rests on no confirmed rule. Statutory text was checked for the version in force on January 21, 2026.
OBSERVATION The adopted bottom line is about $865,000 below what the named cuts reach, and the line-item budget voters see will show athletics at $1
The board adopted $42,957,713 against a presented aligned-model cost of $44,844,373, a reduction of $1,886,660 (1:25:26). The cuts the Chair named (six interventionists, two instructional coaches, a vacant school psychologist and a guidance counselor) “did not get to a budget neutral at all” (0:43:49); the rest was left to the administration. Crawford put the gap at about $865,000 and called finding it in 24 hours unrealistic (0:55:19); Angell said the figure meant cutting “another six positions” to seven (1:00:24); Hawkins said she had expected input from the finance committee (0:59:28), whose report line is struck through in the minutes. RSA 40:13, II-a requires budgets to be posted “on or before the last Monday in January”, which in 2026 was January 26, the date Angell gave after first saying January 22 (1:47:31–1:47:38). He told the board that without another meeting the posted MS-26 would carry athletics at $1 (1:54:53), that the document he had prepared was “based upon my conversations with with board members thinking how the meeting was going to fall” (1:55:05), and that “it would be dishonest to the voters” to promise athletics would run as before (1:56:42). No verified rule bars a board from adopting a total and settling the lines later: RSA 32:10 lets the governing body transfer between appropriations within the total, and the deliberative session can amend the figure under RSA 40:13, IV. The effect is that the line-item budget posted with the warrant does not show the plan the board said it would follow; two weeks later the board announced where the athletics money would come from (February 4 page).
Sources: RSA 40:13, II-a and IV (2019, 192:2, eff. July 10, 2019); RSA 32:10; approved minutes, 1/21/26.
OBSERVATION The default budget is $1,491,991 higher than the adopted budget, and three members had signed it before the board voted on it
The default budget, $44,449,704, is what the district receives if voters reject the operating budget in March; the adopted operating budget is $42,957,713. A “no” vote on the budget article would therefore leave the district with about $1.49 million more, not less. That is lawful: RSA 40:13, IX(b) defines the default as the prior year’s appropriations adjusted for obligations and one-time items, not as a ceiling on the proposal. It is the single fact a voter most needs to read the ballot correctly, and the discussion on the record did not state it in those terms. Separately, Angell said at 1:57:56, before the default-budget vote at 1:59:34, “I already have three signatures on it.” RSA 40:13, XI(a) makes the default budget form the governing body’s; the vote that followed was unanimous and in public, so the early signatures were ratified, but a form signed ahead of the vote reflects a decision taken before the meeting.
Sources: RSA 40:13, IX(b), XI(a); the recording at 0:36:33, 0:49:47, 1:59:00; approved minutes, 1/21/26.
OBSERVATION The chief-education-officer model is lawful; the objection raised on the record is that the job description does not require education qualifications
The board voted 6–1 (Hawkins opposed) to pursue a “chief education officer” rather than a superintendent. Counsel’s written opinion, read by Madden (2:36:36–2:39:00), rests on RSA 194-C:5, II, which provides: “School districts shall not be required to have a superintendent and may assign these services to one or more administrative personnel working full or part-time; or such services may be independently contracted.” The statute supports that reading. The objections were about substance: Hawkins read the required qualifications, which list educational, government, business, public-health or nonprofit administration as alternatives (2:47:04), and noted that the assistant superintendent post and the coaches had been cut (2:53:41); Crawford asked that the description say the leader should “lead” curriculum rather than “support” it (2:49:07). One line of the opinion as read, that “the district is no longer part of a multi district” SAU (2:38:28), describes the position after Unity’s withdrawal from SAU 6 took effect on July 1, 2026; on January 21 the unit still had two member districts. Recorded as an observation: the model is permitted, and the structure beneath it was not yet settled.
Sources: RSA 194-C:5, II (1996, 298:3, eff. Aug. 9, 1996; read 2026-09-25); Executive Job Description.pdf; approved minutes, 1/21/26.
OBSERVATION A $389,000 LED-lighting obligation surfaced on the manifest, apparently signed without a board appropriation, and was not taken up again
Angell said an LED-lighting invoice had arrived unexpectedly that week and was on the first manifest (0:04:14). Madden: “So we have somehow we were obligated to $389,000. On its face, it seems like there’s a contract and somebody signed for it” (0:05:18); whether it is payable monthly or in total was not yet known, and Angell had the agreement but had not reviewed it (0:04:51). Madden asked to return to it under the budget; the recording does not show that he did, and the minutes do not give the amount. RSA 32:8 bars a school board from incurring “any liability” for a purpose for which no appropriation has been made, except as RSA 32:9–11 allow. Whether this contract had an appropriation behind it is not in this record, so no violation is found; the amount and the unanswered question of who signed are why it is recorded.
Sources: RSA 32:8 (1993, 332:1; unamended); approved minutes, 1/21/26, consent agenda.
OBSERVATION The manifest was announced as open to public viewing, then withheld because it carries student names
The Chair told the public the manifest could be viewed after the meeting (0:05:50); the business administrator corrected her: “Not available for the public for viewing because it has student names” (0:06:03). The Chair: “I thought that was going to be redacted.” A manifest is the record of the district’s payments and is a public record open to inspection under RSA 91-A:4, I. Student-identifying details may lawfully be withheld, and the ordinary answer is a redacted copy rather than no copy. Nobody asked to see it on the record, so nothing was refused; the point is that the district had no redacted version ready.
Sources: RSA 91-A:4, I; RSA 197:23-a (payments on the board’s orders).
OBSERVATION A warrant article was dropped on legal advice delivered by text message during the meeting
The athletics article was the pivot of the budget debate: Crawford tied her support for the amendment to it (0:51:44), and a resident called it “really cowardly” (1:43:14). At 2:06:10 Angell reported that he had texted counsel during the Chair’s motion and been told that if a standalone athletics article failed there was a strong argument for “no athletics at all next year”; leaving it out would “preserve that power to move money in” (2:08:32). The article was not added. Consultation with legal counsel is excluded from the definition of a meeting in RSA 91-A:2, I, and relaying the advice in open session is the more transparent choice. It is recorded because the advice that decided the question exists in the record only as one participant’s paraphrase.
Sources: RSA 91-A:2, I; approved minutes, 1/21/26 (“texted Jim O’Shaughnessay during the discussion”).
POSITIVE The March ballot’s new required information, the petitioned cap and the SB 2 calendar were handled on the record
RSA 671:20, II, in force from September 30, 2025, requires the ballot to print, immediately before the school budget question, the prior year’s cost per pupil and the district’s ELA, math and science proficiency. Angell read them into the record with the budget article: $26,012.84 per pupil, ELA 35%, math 25%, science 29% (2:00:27–2:01:03). The duty is the district clerk’s, but the figures reached the warrant discussion in its first year. The petitioned budget cap went on the warrant as RSA 32:5-f, II provides (“This is required to go on”, 2:25:43), and the board’s only motion was not to recommend it, with the estimated effect stated when a resident asked (0:07:46). The calendar held: the budget hearing on January 20 met RSA 40:13, II-a’s third-Tuesday deadline, the board acted in time for the January 26 posting, and the February 7 deliberative session falls within ¶III’s window of the first and second Saturdays after the last Monday in January.
Sources: RSA 671:20, II (2025, 281:1, eff. Sept. 30, 2025); RSA 32:5-f, II; RSA 40:13, II-a and III; approved minutes, 1/21/26.
POSITIVE Trust proceeds went through a noticed public hearing, with the funds named and one trust’s condition read out
The $134,883.11 from the City’s Trustees of Trust Funds was taken through a hearing of its own (0:00:49–0:03:50). The packet holds a “1.21.26 Public Hearing Newspaper Ad”, created January 13, which fits the newspaper notice RSA 198:20-b, III(a) requires at least 7 days ahead for sums of $20,000 or more (publication itself is not in the record). Angell named the trusts and read the Burbee Fund’s condition, that its share, $8,219.50, go to pupils below the high school in proportion to attendance (0:01:06–0:01:55), and asked the board to accept the money “so that we can spend the money in accordance with the trust of each of the trust funds” (0:02:37). Two points for a reviewer. The trustees’ letter in the packet shows that most of the total is restricted to Stevens High School (Stevens & Healy Fund $75,450.21; Way High School Memorial Fund $43,885.92; F.J. Moore Fellowship $6,814.90), which the recording does not spell out. And asked whether the Burbee distribution had always been made, Angell answered “Probably not the last two years” (0:02:25). The agenda’s own bullet, “Acceptance of total donation NH Charitable Foundation”, names a different source.
Sources: RSA 198:20-b, III (2023, 38:1, eff. July 18, 2023; read 2026-09-25); Scan_0007.pdf (Trustees of Trust Funds letter of October 2, 2025, with will excerpts); 1.21.26 Public Hearing Newspaper Ad; approved minutes, 1/21/26.
POSITIVE Software agreements published, a gift noticed as the statute asks, and every motion minuted with mover and seconder
The technology department has put a searchable list of district software, the buildings using it and agreement expiration dates on the public website (0:14:23–0:15:36), and plans a public-notice board. The $10,000 Byrne Foundation gift appears on the agenda and in the minutes, as RSA 198:20-b, III(b) requires for gifts under $20,000. The approved minutes name a mover and seconder for every motion, record each member’s position on every split vote, state the hearing’s close and the adjournment time, and name the clerk who produced them, as RSA 91-A:2, II requires.
Sources: RSA 198:20-b, III(b); RSA 91-A:2, II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025); approved minutes, 1/21/26.
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
- Right-to-Know: RSA 91-A:2, I and II (2025, 112:1, eff. Aug. 22, 2025); RSA 91-A:4, I
- Budget and ballot: RSA 32:5-f; RSA 32:8; RSA 32:10; RSA 40:13, II-a, III, IV, IX(b), XI(a); RSA 671:20, II (2025, 281:1)
- School districts: RSA 194-C:5, II; RSA 197:23-a; RSA 198:20-b, III (2023, 38:1)