The Claremont School Board frequently points to its budget committee as one of its most successful initiatives. This committee, a three-member board group, formed four years ago to increase the board’s involvement in the budget-crafting process. The group studies the district’s operating costs for ways to provide services more effectively and efficiently, through meetings with school administrators and analyzing data and trends such as enrollment, program usage, and spending histories.
While the committee may be effective toward that objective, recent events should encourage the school board to closely examine the transparency, and possible legality, of its approach.
Under state law, budget committees are considered public bodies. They are expected to meet in public, keep minutes, and make their records available to the public. Only in specific circumstances, such as a discussion of an employee or a contract negotiation, may committee meetings be made non-public.
But Claremont’s budget committee’s meetings are not open to the public, nor are they publicly announced. There is not even a mention of the committee on the school board’s webpage.
The board’s make-up solely of school board members poses another concern. While allowable, creating the equivalent of a mini-board runs a risk of conflicts, even when the group is short of a quorum.
An example of this occurred in 2021 when the budget committee, without the board’s approval, requested in excess of $500,000 in additional budget cuts beyond what the board had discussed.
Most recently, on Sunday, Jan. 23, three school board members appeared to first learn of proposed staffing cuts through a Facebook post, despite having already approved the budget proposal.
An inquiry by the Eagle Times discovered that only the board’s budget committee members were aware of the proposed staffing cuts, having received a detailed list of reductions from the administration. However, the budget committee did not pass along its documents to its board colleagues.
Notably, these types of issues last year drove the Claremont City Council to suspend its own advisory finance committee after a recording of a committee meeting showed some councilors strategically discussing a proposed employee compensation plan.
To city councilors, the greater concern was not the topic itself but that a small council group was discussing it separately.
“We are a council of nine, not of one [or two or three],” as Councilor Andrew O’Hearne is fond of saying.
The school board could rectify future problems by ensuring that all board members receive the same budget-related documents. That might at least avoid board members approving a budget without knowing the full impacts.
But the board’s stated reluctance to publicly discuss individual positions in terms of funding is still a problem, as is the public having no access to the committee’s meetings with administrators about their programs.
According to Sprague, it is often difficult to publicly discuss specific positions without it becoming clear who are the affected employees. The board does not wish to cause discomfort to employees by indirectly announcing their position’s cut in a public meeting.
In addition the school board frequently contends that knowing about individual staffing cuts is not pertinent to public knowledge, or even the school board. While the board and its budget committee may offer suggestions for reductions, how the superintendent spends the appropriated budget is outside the school board’s purview. The school board’s central attention, members say, is to the budget’s bottom-line numbers.
While the board’s take is theoretically true, discussing individual position cuts is common to public budget meetings. The Claremont City Council meets publicly with city department heads to discuss their budgets, as do boards and committees throughout the region.
Regardless of the school board’s intentions, keeping the details of its budget conversations behind closed doors sets a dangerous precedent and can irreparably damage the board’s transparency and integrity in the public’s eyes.
On Wednesday, the Claremont School Board explained the staffing cuts to the public, in an effort to clear misconceptions and ease concerns. Yet, the issue of how several board members only learned of the cuts after approving the budget received no mention. Not one school board member raised a complaint.
That silence should sound an alarm.
As your daily newspaper, we are committed to providing you with important local news coverage for Sullivan County and the surrounding areas.