CLAREMONT — A forensic audit of the Claremont School District’s finances covering the seven years that ended Dec. 31, 2025, is on hold and may cover fewer years than the School Board and administration requested in March.
School Board Chairwoman Candace Crawford said Friday that CBIZ Forensic Consulting Group of Boston, the firm the district hired in March, agreed in July to be acquired by another firm. She said that has raised questions about whether the contract is still valid.
With the contract in limbo, Crawford said, Superintendent Timothy Broadrick has looked further into what caused the district’s deficit, which was estimated at $5 million as of August 2025.
“If you narrow the scope of a forensic audit, then your costs come down,” Crawford said. “So while we are trying to ascertain the current situation, Tim is finding situations that can create a more targeted forensic audit so the cost would be less.
“So there are two things. No. 1, is the contract still valid? We think it is not because the company was bought,” Crawford said. “No. 2, we would like to narrow the scope of the work in the engagement letter to be more targeted based on this additional information we have been able to discover ourselves.”
Crawford also said the $10,000 deposit CBIZ required to begin its work was never cashed, or perhaps never received. The check was reissued, she said, but because of CBIZ’s sale to Grant Thornton Advisors, the district wants clarification on the status of the contract.
Grant Thornton Advisors announced July 29 that it had agreed to buy CBIZ in an all-cash deal valued at $5 billion.
At Broadrick’s request, the board met in nonpublic session Wednesday night to discuss the audit. Broadrick told the board he believes the district can “narrow the scope” of the audit to control costs. The board had authorized up to $50,000 for the audit under its engagement letter with CBIZ.
“I think it is possible to be very specific and look at certain situations during certain dates and dig into all the facts around those where the red flags seem to be the brightest,” Broadrick told the board.
Broadrick did not say publicly which time frame he meant.
Many residents called for a forensic audit about a year ago, after the School Board learned in mid-August 2025 of the estimated $5 million deficit. The deficit led to steep budget cuts and nearly delayed the start of school. The district had also fallen behind on its annual audits, and the most recent completed audit is for 2022-23.
At a May 2025 School Board meeting, Chris Pratt, then the superintendent, and Mary Henry, then the business administrator, said the district ran deficits in fiscal 2020 and 2021. Henry said more than $3 million was returned to taxpayers over those two years, leading to the deficit.
Pratt blamed the deficit on the district’s failure to seek reimbursement for federal grant money it had already spent.
“We were spending the money but not submitting to the state so they could reimburse us,” Pratt said.
Those grants included Title I, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund.
“We thought we had this money but we didn’t,” Henry said at the May meeting.
The district’s failure to apply for reimbursements predates the 2024-25 fiscal year, and the one-year window to claim that older money has closed.
When CBIZ was hired in March, Crawford said the deficit was the result of “mismanagement of resources, not being careful with documentation, too much money being returned to the taxpayer and overestimating revenue as reimbursements.”
Last week, the administration announced it had applied for and received about $700,000 in grant reimbursements from the past two years and expects at least that much more.
Pratt and Henry were placed on paid leave in August 2025, days after the deficit came to light, and later reached agreements with the district to end their employment. Pratt left in September 2025 and Henry in November. Henry, who had been hired in July 2023, was hired this summer as business administrator for the Mountain Views Supervisory District, which serves Woodstock and surrounding towns.
Pratt had been principal of Stevens High School when he was named superintendent, replacing Mike Tempesta, whom the board fired in January 2024.
The district hired Matt Angell as interim business administrator in August 2025. Angell told the board in May that he had reduced the projected deficit to about $1 million, but the final figure for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2026, has not been determined. Angell resigned in July. Teresa Taylor will start as SAU 6 business administrator in October.
Patrick O’Grady can be reached at pogclmt@gmail.com.
