CLAREMONT — The roughly $5 million deficit the school district was facing at the end of the last fiscal year will be pared down to about $1 million at the end of the current fiscal year on June 30, the district’s interim business administrator told the School Board this week.
Matt Angell, hired as the business administrator late last summer in the midst of a financial crisis, which at one point jeopardized the start to the school year, updated the board on the district’s finances in a memo on Tuesday.
“At this point in time, I am reporting an estimated remaining year-end deficit of approximately $1 million,” Angell wrote to the board. “We are continuing to work on keeping the spending at a minimum.”
School Board Chairwoman Candace Crawford said Thursday that while a year-end deficit is not the preferred scenario it is not that “bad” on a $43 million budget.
“If our shortfall is $1 million, we are going to have to be careful from the beginning of the year to make it up by the end of (next) the year,” Crawford said.
When the deficit was estimated at $5 million last September, Angell said he was not willing to predict how much he could reduce it by the end of the fiscal year because there were too many unknowns.
“Factors to reduce the deficit change daily,” Angell told residents during a meeting in late September. “We find savings that we can implement, sometimes by tightening controls and others by eliminating spending. But we are also discovering new, unpaid bills.”
At Wednesday’s School Board meeting, Angell said that special education costs have gone up because of out-of-district placements, but added that the Student Services Department has successfully reduced its expense estimates through the end of the year, resulting in a net reduction of anticipated costs.
Angell also told the board he is working with Plodzik and Sanderson, the school district’s auditing firm, to complete audits for the last three fiscal years, but did not give an estimate as to when the audits will be finished.
When the district’s financial disarray came to light, it was revealed that annual audits had not been completed in a timely manner. For example, the 2015 audit was not finished until four years later.
Lack of continuity of employees in the business office was cited as one of the reasons, but it was never made clear why audits were stopped for a few years under previous administrators. They were resumed in 2019 but it has taken years to catch up.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, Angell said he would solicit proposals to sell the former Bluff Elementary School, which was closed last October, and the former Masonic Temple on Maple Avenue. Voters authorized the district to sell the two properties at the annual school meeting in March.
On Wednesday, the board approved Angell’s “request for qualifications” form that will be sent to commercial real estate brokers.
The district has spent $438,350 in carrying costs on the Masonic Temple, Angell said in his report to the board. This includes the $255,000 purchase price in January 2025, $3,700 in closing costs and $160,700 in improvements, including a handicap access ramp, and fire alarm and sprinkler system.
The district purchased the building on the recommendation of the former Superintendent Chris Pratt and was intended to be used for the district’s alternative education program —The SAU 6 Academy — but was never occupied. Included in the carrying costs are $18,900 in unpaid architectural fees, which Angell said is reviewing.
The 3,700-square-foot building on two floors sits on one acre and is currently assessed at $270,900, according to the city’s assessing records.
Angell told the board that it should not expect to recoup what it has spent on the building.
“You are not going to get $438,000 for the Masonic Temple,” Angell said.
The former Bluff School is assessed at $3 million. It is 32,400 square feet on 4.6 acres and like the Masonic building, Angell said the board should lower its selling price expectations.
“You are not going to get $3 million for this property,” Angell said, adding that any buyer will have to put at least $1 million into renovations.
A potential Charter school looked at Bluff, but found a more suitable property in Newport, Angell said.
So far, there have been three showings at the Masonic building and one at Bluff.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
