SAU 6 Board — November 13, 2025

MEDIUM No minutes exist for this meeting, and none have been located for any SAU 6 meeting

RSA 91-A:2, II requires the minutes of a public body's meeting to be "promptly recorded and open to public inspection not more than 5 business days after the meeting," and to record the members present, the persons appearing before the body, a brief description of the subject matter discussed and any final decisions. Nine months after this meeting, no minutes for it have been located. What was checked, on 2026-08-23: the district's Meeting Minutes share, both the 2025 and the 2026 year folders; and the SAU 6 Schoolboard Packets share, where the settled pattern is that each SAU 6 packet folder carries drafts of an earlier meeting's minutes rather than its own — so a later folder is where these minutes should surface, and none does. The absence bites harder here than usual because the recording cannot substitute for the missing record on the two points the statute makes minutes responsible for. It does not establish who was present: the roll call is transcribed as "Darling at. No. Crystal Davis here. Warren. Howard here. William. Madden. Heather," with the answers absorbed into the caller's speech, and the chair simply concludes "we do have a quorum this evening." And it does not contain the nonpublic session at all. The chair's opening line — transcribed "This is here virtually" — cannot be resolved either; if a member did participate electronically, RSA 91-A:2, III would have required that member to identify everyone present at their location, a physically present quorum, and all votes taken by roll call, whereas every vote in this meeting except the two nonpublic roll calls was a voice vote. Nothing in the record supports asserting that, which is exactly the problem. This is graded MEDIUM rather than HIGH for one reason: the statutory duty is that minutes be open to inspection, not that they be posted online, and no inspection request was made or refused in the course of building this page. What is established is that the public record is empty. A refused or unanswered inspection request would move this flag to HIGH.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes promptly recorded and open to public inspection within 5 business days; contents); RSA 91-A:2, III (electronic participation — identification of those present, physically present quorum, all votes by roll call); RSA 91-A:4 (access to governmental records); MAP.md section 99 for the share-by-share negative.

MEDIUM The nonpublic session was never sealed, so its minutes were due within 72 hours — and none exist

The board entered nonpublic session at 0:07:04 under RSA 91-A:3, II(a) and returned by 0:07:50. Nothing on the recording is a motion to seal, and none is announced on the return — which matters, because RSA 91-A:3, III makes disclosure the default: minutes of a nonpublic session "shall be publicly disclosed within 72 hours of the meeting" unless two-thirds of the members present determine by recorded vote that disclosure would render a proposed action ineffective or would likely affect adversely the reputation of a person other than a member of the body. Without that vote the 72-hour clock ran, and nine months later no nonpublic minutes for this meeting have been located in any of the shares checked for flag 1. Two qualifications are owed. First, the recording does not contain the session, so a sealing motion made inside it would be invisible here — but a seal is supposed to be voted in a way the public can see, and no minutes exist to record one. Second, as with flag 1, the statute speaks of disclosure and inspection rather than online publication, and no inspection request was made or refused here. Note also what the exemption itself implies: the board went into the room under the employee-dismissal, promotion, compensation or discipline heading on the same evening it approved its business administrator's new contract in the open, and it emerged with no announced decision at all.

Sources: RSA 91-A:3, III (nonpublic minutes publicly disclosed within 72 hours unless sealed by a recorded two-thirds vote with a statutory determination); RSA 91-A:3, II(a) (dismissal, promotion, compensation or discipline of a public employee — the exemption named in the motion); SAU6 School Board Agenda 11.13.25.pdf, which prints the exemption and its statutory text.

MEDIUM Minutes of five meetings, one of them five months old, approved in six minutes after being "posted the last minute"

Between 0:01:59 and 0:05:43 the board approved minutes for June 12, August 21, August 26, September 4 and September 11. The June 12 minutes were five months old. A member said on the record, into the vote, "I didn't read it" and "I don't have enough information," and the chair answered: "I know they were posted the last minute, so I understand that." The June 12 vote then closed without a stated tally — "All those in favor? Oh, no. Okay. We're moving. Those minutes are accepted as presented" — and the September 4 and September 11 votes carried with two and three abstentions respectively, the chair abstaining on the ground that she "was not present."

The distinction that matters here is between availability and approval. RSA 91-A:2, II sets a five-business-day deadline for minutes to be recorded and open to inspection; it sets no deadline for a board to approve them, and a draft that is available satisfies the statute even if approval comes months later. So the five-month approval gap is not itself a violation. What does bear on the statute is the chair's own two statements: that the minutes "were posted on the web page" only because "there was an issue last time with being able to open up those minutes," and that they were "posted the last minute" — the chair of the body describing late availability of the very documents the statute makes promptly available. The board's own drafts bear this out unevenly. The packet for this meeting carries drafts for June 12, August 21 and September 4; drafts for August 26 and September 11 are not in it, and no draft of the September 11 minutes has been located anywhere in the district's shares — so the board approved, on this evening, minutes the public has still never seen. And the versions approved here have themselves never been posted in approved form.

Sources: RSA 91-A:2, II (minutes promptly recorded and open to public inspection within 5 business days; no approval deadline); 12. SAU6 11.13.25 — the packet folder, four documents; MAP.md sections 22, 23, 25 and 31 for which drafts exist where.