Claremont School District, Deliberative Session — February 3, 2016

OBSERVATION With no moderator present, the district attorney rather than the clerk conducted the choice of a temporary moderator, citing a statute the transcript cannot resolve

At 0:00:21 Upton told the room "we do not have a moderator" and that "State law RSA 6716 does allow the school district to elect a temporary officer." He then took the motion, called for discussion and put the vote himself. The statute that governs this situation, RSA 197:20, has been unchanged since 1964: the district clerk "shall act as moderator of any meeting until a moderator pro tempore shall be chosen, if the moderator is absent or the office has become vacant." The clerk, Mary Woodman, was present: she took the mover's name at 0:01:10 and administered the oath at 0:03:09. On the statute's text she, not counsel, was the officer to preside until the choice was made.

The outcome is what the statute contemplates: the meeting itself chose a moderator pro tempore by a recorded voice vote, and nothing that followed turned on who put that one question. Two details are worth checking against the minutes if they surface: RSA 6716 does not correspond to a section number as transcribed, and the oath read at 0:03:09 runs "until March 5th, 2016", three days before the March 8 second session. The same evening the clerk told the board that no one had filed for moderator for the coming year (February 3 board meeting), and the temporary moderator said she was stepping in "for Tom" (1:31:01).

Sources: RSA 197:20 (2016 codification; source note ends 1963, 120:5, eff. Jan. 1, 1964): clerk acts as moderator until a moderator pro tempore is chosen.

OBSERVATION The default budget read from the warrant was $291,603 higher than the proposed budget; one sentence of the presentation says the opposite

The warrant as read at 0:45:01 puts the proposed operating budget at $34,131,283 and the default budget at $34,422,886, so a defeat of Article 2 would have left the district with the larger figure. The superintendent's presentation agrees in one place ("The default budget would be if that was approved would be a much larger increase", 0:34:39) and then says at 0:35:21 "That's why our default budget is less." Read in context he may have meant the default budget was smaller than it would otherwise have been, or the transcript may have lost a word; the recording should be checked. Voters relying on the spoken sentence alone could take away the wrong comparison.

For the vintage: the 2014 text of RSA 40:13, IX(b) (in force until the 2018 amendments) defined the default budget as the prior year's operating appropriations adjusted for debt service, contracts and other obligations and reduced by one-time expenditures; it did not yet contain the later eliminated-positions clause. No default budget worksheet for FY17 is available online to test the $34,422,886 figure.

Sources: RSA 40:13, IX(b) (2017 codification; source note ends 2014, 7:1-4 and 190:1-3, 8-10, eff. Sept. 9, 2014, so the text in force on February 3, 2016).

OBSERVATION The presiding moderator closed the session with a personal appeal in favor of investment

Before taking the adjournment motion, the temporary moderator said "I always believe that the moderator should be unbiased" (1:31:01) and then added at 1:32:05: "sometimes we have to invest in order to move forward. It's just my opinion. And I get to do that now." All nine articles had already been disposed of, so the remark could not have affected any vote taken at the session; it was addressed to the March 8 ballot. No statute in force in February 2016 that this project has verified forbids a moderator from expressing a view after the business is done. Recorded as an observation about neutrality of the chair, not a rule-based concern.

Sources: No verified rule; see the timeline at 1:31:01 and 1:32:05.

OBSERVATION The motions to "accept" each article had no legal effect on whether it reached the ballot

The moderator took a motion, second and voice vote on every article (for example "Can I have a motion to accept article two?" at 0:47:06). RSA 40:13, VI, as it read in 2016, provides: "All warrant articles shall be placed on the official ballot for a final vote, including warrant articles as amended by the first session." The first session's role was explanation, discussion, debate and any amendment; a vote to accept or reject did not keep an article on or off the ballot. The warrant as read at 0:43:45 says as much: "The final vote of all warrant articles shall be conducted by the official ballot at the second session." The practice is harmless, but a voter could take a voice vote here for a decision. The board repeated it later the same evening by voting to place Articles 1 through 9 on the ballot (February 3 board meeting).

Sources: RSA 40:13, IV and VI (2017 codification; source note ends 2014, so in force on February 3, 2016): first session for explanation, discussion, debate and amendment; all articles go to the ballot.

OBSERVATION No warrant, budget, default budget form or minutes for this session are available online

MAP.md records that neither district Drive share holds anything before July 2022 (checked 9/26/26). The warrant, the posted budget, the PowerPoint and the minutes of this session cannot be inspected, so the figures on this page come from the recording alone. The session itself accepted the 2015 annual meeting's minutes (0:08:22), so minutes of these sessions were kept. By statute the clerk had to certify the minutes of any session at which appropriations could be amended and file them with the Department of Revenue Administration within 20 days; whether that was done cannot be tested from here. Graded under the project's missing-records rule as an observation about online availability, not a finding that records were never made.

Sources: RSA 21-J:34, IV-a (in force from 2007, 182:2, eff. Apr. 1, 2007): certified minutes of an official-ballot session filed within 20 days; Input/SupportingDocuments/MAP.md section 4.