| 0:04:07 | Handbooks adopted, one at a time | Pratt: the administrators "have been working diligently over the past two, thre[e]" months. Herrington had met Madden "like five minutes ago" to work through the comments. Madden's issues: the dress code — "a pet peeve of mine" — and the diploma format, "The 27 credits, the New Hampshire Scholars endorsement versus the Stem and Arts." Whitney took the three handbooks in separate motions "so people can peel off"; Kennedy was introduced as the new CMS principal; Crawford thanked Madden for "his work in persistent and persistence in reviewing the handbooks." | |
| 0:14:30 | Fiscal-control policies adopted | Nine policies adopted on second read — including DA Fiscal Management Plan, DGA Authorized Signatures, DIE Audits and DK Payments, Checks & Manifests — plus the records-retention, inventory-management and procurement procedures. Crawford, per the approved minutes, noted that the policies "have already been looked at and moved to a second read because they were found to be good and are already being used." Sprague's only comment on the workload: "Mrs. Hawkins is a slave driver." | POSITIVE |
| 0:19:56 | Nonpublic session and a five-year seal | Sprague's motion states the exemptions on its face: "I'd like to make a motion to go into nonpublic under RSA 91-8 colon three comma LLAC [91-A:3, II(a, c and l)] and l a being dismissal, promotion or compensation. If any public employee c matters which if discussed in public which likely affected virtually [adversely affect the reputation] of any person, and l consideration of legal advice provided by legal counsel." Roll call by the clerk; in 7:02 p.m., out 8:20 p.m. Then Whitney: "I'd like to make a motion to seal the minutes of the meeting for five years." Roll call, unanimous — but neither the recording nor the minutes records the statutory finding the seal requires. | HIGH POSITIVE |
| 0:22:29 | The chair discloses the deficit | Whitney: "So it gives me no pleasure to convey to the public and to the board at large that as of fiscal year 25, we have a massive deficit anywhere between 1 and $5 million. This deficit, leaves the district in a position where we are struggling to keep doors open and to pay, mental, fundamental aspects of payroll." | HIGH |
| 0:23:27 | Counsel: "a state of fiscal distress" | O'Shaughnessy (rendered "John O'Shaughnessy" of the "Drummond Woodson [Woodsum]" firm): the auditor reports "a significant deficit that you're carrying over as a, an operating deficit from last year to this year"; vendors including the health insurance provider report "large payments that have been in arrears"; "Because there is, at this point, insufficient cash flow on a week to week, month to month basis to make all those payments as they become due… I would call this a state of fiscal distress for the district." On Tuesday the district met Commissioner of Education Caitlin Davis, the Bureau of Public School Finance, the Division of Revenue Administration and two state lawyers; the Commissioner asked for an update on meeting obligations through September "by the end of day tomorrow." | HIGH |
| 0:26:57 | The legal toolkit: a court, a ballot, or cuts | "I'm going to start by saying, I don't think there's any precedent in New Hampshire for this." Option one, "encouraged by the state": petition "Sullivan County Superior Court for permission to hold a special meeting" for a supplemental appropriation — "The judge has to agree that an emergency exists… It's by no means an easy process." Option two: find cuts. Later, on borrowing: "Under current law, neither the city nor the school district can borrow money to pay for for debt… that's… A nonstarter." "The solution here is maybe the legislature makes a change or something, but under current law, there is no fix that I'm aware of." | OBSERVATION |
| 0:29:48 | Madden: "somewhat deceptive" | "I think the presentation was somewhat deceptive. The fact that we're sitting here tonight and we're talking about many millions of dollars. At that time, we were talking about 1 million, maybe as high as $1.5 million." On the phrase used in the spring: "We put fancy words and names to the problem. I think we hid behind our lawyer… Our lawyer named the problem. He called it a structural deficit" — a term he could not find in Black's Law Dictionary or Webster's. "From what we've been told, this is because of negligence, mismanagement." "And we've been told there's nothing nefarious. But in three months we go from $1 million to X, and I don't even know what X is. So I hope we're contemplating looking at this from a forensic point of view." | MEDIUM |
| 0:33:35 | IRS payments; the school-opening question | Madden: "I've been asking. Also, I've been asking whether or not the IRS payments have been made and I can't get an answer." Henry: "Up to date. Up to date. Oh, yes. Up to date. Every payroll they get paid on the Friday payroll goes out." Madden then: "Is there a threat to school opening in two weeks? If we're talking about these many millions of dollars? I gotta assume we're in jeopardy" — and asked that families be told to look at VLACS and RVCC options if extracurriculars might not exist. | |
| 0:37:57 | $3 million of adequacy aid due September 1 | "The 3 million that we were talking about coming from the state's money, that's due to us. It's not extra funds. It's the money that is due… So the September 1st is when that money is due to come in.… That's your state advocacy [adequacy], right?… The state cannot send us that any sooner than when it's due." The approved minutes attribute this point to Vice Chair Petrin; the dialogue file assigns the segment to Frank Sprague and flags the attribution as uncertain ("voice merged into counsel's cluster"). | |
| 0:39:55 | The auditor's advice, relayed | Crawford, from an hour-long meeting that afternoon with "Mike Campo, who is our account? No. Who is our auditor" and Pratt: "I asked the question to him. How does the structural deficit fall into this current deficit? And he said, ignore. Don't even talk about the structural deficit at this point." "Your total focus should be on your current year deficit and try and get a number, a number of what that is and how you're going to solve that number first." | HIGH |
| 0:40:51 | Pratt asks Madden to clarify "nefarious" | Pratt: "when you speak about nefarious, I was wondering, are you claiming that the current administration is nefarious?" Madden: "I didn't say that… My question is, is there anything nefarious going on? Because I don't know how we go from 1 million to" X. Pratt: "I'll let the meeting minutes and the previous board meetings speak for themselves… I'd rather rely on the the evidence that the public can find online." Howard then clarified that the deficit under discussion is the FY25 year that ended June 30, 2025, not earlier years. | |
| 0:45:40 | Hawkins: outrage, and how to prevent a repeat | "We are representatives of the community and we are advocates for students, teachers, educators, families. And we would be offending those people if we were not outraged by this… We have asked the taxpayers of Claremont more times to dip into their pockets to fund what everyone wants quality schools, well-run schools." Her question: "how do we make sure we're not back here next year asking the same question…? We're in survival mode right now." | |
| 0:50:15 | Sprague on the administration's plan and special education | "I saw nothing in that plan that would prevent that… I'll call it a disaster. That's special ed.… It's a disaster. The overages, the.… Inefficiencies, the mismanagement. It's just a disaster. And I just feel that I didn't see anything in that plan to remediate what I consider to be a dysfunctional system with no, no rubrics, no procedures, just whatever… Nothing. And I have a problem with that." | MEDIUM |
| 0:51:33 | Crawford: FY26 money paying FY25 bills | "information that we have asked for and we haven't received, that has been very difficult." On going back to the voters: "I think it's a moot point whether I ask them or not, because I don't think they'll give it to us." On the audits: "It is not the auditors fault… The auditors can only do their job if we give them the information on which to do the audits.… And we have been extremely slow, very slow in providing that information to the auditors so that we we were going to have 22 what it done… and it's still not done." And the number that mattered most: "right now, I think we've already spent a million and a half of the 26 money paying the 25 bills, and we don't have that kind of money in the budget." | HIGH OBSERVATION |
| 0:57:35 | Koski: errors carried forward | "there's a reason we're doing it's 22 audits in 24, 25… The prior year is bad numbers that errors carried forward and then carried forward again, then carried forward again. And that has happened because we're all new here." He recalled having to "bribe, the accountant to get account numbers to have bills paid": "It was such a chaotic system and I wasn't part of the business administration. I've been a business administrator. I had no idea the extent of what was being done in that office." Howard's reply: the board wants solutions, and the deficit on the table is FY25. | HIGH |
| 1:02:30 | Where the overages are | Howard: "There is 2.5 million in overtures [overages] specifically for special ed, based on the print out that we were sent this week." Crawford: special-education over-expenditure "is not the only" area. Petrin, going down page one of the actuals: "there's 40 something lines and 20 some other are in the overspent" — including dues and fees, "controller [controllable] bills." Pratt cautioned the figures were still being reconciled "to get everything to give a more accurate number." O'Hearn described position control and requisition work already under way. | MEDIUM |
| 1:06:12 | The closed SAU office, and "stonewalled" | Madden: "When the saw six office was closed for two weeks in July, what was every one charging that time to?" Pratt: closed "To the public," people took vacation or came in. Hawkins, as SAU 6 board chair, owned the decision and described administrator coverage. Madden: "it's indicative of a total lack of financial control… And when I ask for information, I get stonewalled. So when my mind when I get stonewalled, I assume the worst." Crawford: "there has been a pattern of not delivering information when the board has asked for… the finance committee has been asking for expense to budget for six months, and that we want that at the end of each month, and we haven't gotten it." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:11:25 | Public comment opened mid-item | "Given the extent given the topic tonight, I'd like to, open public comments or if anybody has questions" — three minutes each at the podium, though the scheduled citizens'-comment slot had already passed with no speakers. Two people spoke. | POSITIVE |
| 1:12:05 | Rep. Hope Damon: 67% of special-education aid | "the state paid 67% of the requested special education funds in fiscal year. This not fiscal and academic year just completed… I would surmise that that's part of the special ed deficit." Going forward: "a statute did pass the most that the state can pro rate. The special ed appropriation is down to 80%." She floated city collaboration or a bond "paying over a period of maybe ten years to eliminate the deficit," and asked for something parents could plan around. Sprague clarified the aid at issue: "What you're talking about used to be catastrophic aid, and it's special ed aid… That money is for extraordinary costs… we reach a certain cap and above that the state pays the 67%." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:16:04 | How long can the district pay its bills? | Henry: "I've got a few September right now and into October. It's where I plan because I've made arrangements with vendors." Pressed: "I'm going to tell you the end of September because I'm working on October because we get our next adequacy aid November 1st or second." Whitney: "How can you express that confidence when the deficit number has varied dramatically?" Henry: "We don't have a choice… bills are not going to get paid and some are going to be very late. That's the way it is… Is the debt going to accumulate? Yes. But the sooner you make decisions on what you want to do helps to slow that accumulation." Pratt added the district had worked with SchoolCare and the city was releasing funds a week early. | HIGH |
| 1:19:30 | Gary Merchant (Ward 2): delay the opening | "what's critical right now is a very detailed and I mean detailed, solid information about a cash flow and how the cash flow is going to happen, what's coming in, what's going out… I think it needs to be done with the next 48 hours." And: "I would advocate for you folks to consider delaying the opening of the school until this thing is solved… it's better to postpone the issue for a few weeks and then have the school year go into June if we have to." He closed: "put the knives away. Sit down. Collaborate." Crawford's answer: "so much of the expenses that a school district has are already. Cooked in… obviously payroll is the biggest and those are contractual." | |
| 1:23:16 | Why a bond is not available | Crawford had asked the auditor that afternoon about spreading the deficit "like a bond, like do it over ten years… He was not, he he was very discouraging about that… The school district can't can't borrow the money. It's it the city has to and the city has it has to be convinced." O'Shaughnessy: "Under current law, neither the city nor the school district can borrow money to pay for for debt… The city can take a tax anticipation note, but I believe the city has been informed by its council [counsel] that it wouldn't be allowed to do that for for the purpose of bailing out the school district." | OBSERVATION |
| 1:26:52 | "The fix is not a local fix" | O'Shaughnessy on the meeting with the Commissioner and the Bureau of School Finance: "I've tapped all of the bond and public finance lawyers in my office… It's a legislative issue… And the fix is not a local fix. It may have to be a state fix." Then, on special education: "You guys increase the age to 22… you shifted the burden of proof onto the school districts… Two years ago, there were 20 cases at the Doe [DOE]. This year there were five cases at the Doe. The districts lost all five of them… so we mediate and settle every single case." | OBSERVATION OBSERVATION |
| 1:30:12 | The Commissioner's written instruction | "the Commissioner of Education sent an email to the superintendent and to the board chair… She says while there are a lot of other things happening, cash flow is the priority.… So she has asked for a detailed cash flow statement, starting with the current cash balance and covering through the end of September, showing all expenses, including all remaining payables from 25 through 26… Not just payroll. Don't just pick what we think are the mandatory ones. All of them, include the planned disbursements from the state and from the city." Counsel also described what New Hampshire lacks: "In other states other than New Hampshire… there's legislation that that governs this whole entire situation where they put school districts in financial distress. They assign a state auditor who oversees and comes in and helps the district… We have none of that in New Hampshire." His immediate step: "trying to get a business administrator with a CPA background to come in and help." | HIGH OBSERVATION |
| 1:33:42 | What the board demanded for August 20 | Madden: "When we first approached this issue, Mary said, September. And then I think she we thought that the end of September and then I heard October. So I have my doubts. So I'd like to see it a weekly breakdown… I'm not buying it. I don't believe it." Crawford explained the decision to go public: "we don't have the information, but we cannot we do not feel comfortable… The public needs to know what the situation is." Whitney closed by setting the deliverable — options, the documentation sent to the Commissioner, and the reconciliation — with Pratt agreeing to deliver it 24 hours ahead of the August 20 meeting. | POSITIVE |