Claremont School District Hires Forensic Accountants to Probe $5 Million Shortfall

New Hampshire State Police urged SAU 6 interim Business Administrator Matt Angell to hire a forensic auditor after the Claremont Police Department declined the case. That sequence of events, confirmed by School Board Chairwoman Candy Crawford, explains why the district on April 2 finalized a contract with CBIZ Forensic Consulting Group, a Boston-based firm engaged through the Augusta, Maine law firm Bernstein, Shur, Sawyer and Nelson, to examine six years of the district's financial records.

The 11-page agreement authorizes CBIZ to investigate the district's financial activities from January 1, 2019 through December 31, 2025, at an estimated cost of $50,000 on an hourly basis. The scope covers transactions, grant reporting, reimbursements and internal controls at the root of a roughly $5 million shortfall that surfaced in August 2025 and set off a cascading series of cuts to staff, programs and services.

Those cuts have already reshaped the school year in concrete terms: the district eliminated 19 new teaching positions, 20 non-teaching positions, and all funding for athletics and extracurricular activities. Class sizes grew and students across Claremont's schools lost programs that won't simply be restored once the budget stabilizes.

Crawford said the board had two reasons for moving forward with CBIZ. The first was the push from state police. The second was an unambiguous message from hundreds of residents who packed public sessions demanding answers. "I've had many people say that no one is going to be happy until you actually get a third-party forensic audit, somebody who knows what they are doing to do the research and make a report," Crawford said. On what CBIZ will find, she offered no predictions: "We don't know what they will find and we are not even telling them what to look for. We just want somebody to go through the records on what was done and identify whether there is something that needs further investigation."

Before the CBIZ contract was finalized, Angell flagged one specific area to law enforcement. "I'm speaking with law enforcement, specifically about stipends," he said. Board minutes from a November meeting, taken by then-board Chair Heather Whitney, noted discussion of "specific past employees" and "a number of stipends linked to specific employees." Whitney underlined the word "stipends" and wrote "concerning" in the margin.

The former business administrator, Mary Henry, was suspended in August when the deficit was first disclosed. The board moved to force her out in October, at which point she demanded a public hearing and signaled she was preparing a public statement. The independent auditor had previously traced the beginning of the shortfall to a 2022 state Department of Revenue Administration filing that overstated revenues by $1 million, causing the district to overestimate its unassigned funds and return $1.2 million in tax money to Claremont residents.

The agreement grants CBIZ considerable latitude. The firm will provide periodic oral presentations to the board as it works and will deliver a final report to both the district and the New Hampshire Board of Education. There is no fixed deadline for completing the work; either party may terminate the engagement with written notice. If CBIZ's review documents malfeasance or gross negligence, the findings could produce referrals to prosecutors, insurance claims, and renewed pressure on state lawmakers weighing whether New Hampshire should extend emergency assistance or impose new oversight requirements on the district.