BUCKFIELD – Teachers on the lowest end of the pay scale got the biggest boost when the Buckfield Teachers Union and SAD 39 directors ratified a three-year contract following months of mediation.

The new contract will bring the lowest paid teachers, those with a bachelor’s degree only, from $24,700 to $30,000, meeting the state’s new minimum-pay requirement by the end of the three-year contract.

A teacher at top of the scale who holds a master’s degree plus 15 credits will be making $48,016 at the contract’s end.

The union ratified the agreement Monday by a 42-1 vote followed by a unanimous vote by SAD 39 directors Wednesday night.

“It was a long process but I’m really happy we have a contract the teachers and Board of Directors fully support,” said SAD 39 Chairwoman Colleen Bullecks.

The new contract, which will be retroactive to July 1, 2006.

Every teacher will receive some increase in pay, but the largest will go to the teachers who need to meet the $30,000 minimum, said Stacey Raymond, chairman of the Personnel Committee.

“We were trying to be creative and trying to get the ones up (in pay scale) who needed it the most and asking for some leeway for the others,” Raymond said. “That’s why it took is so long in trying to have fair increases for everyone without completely breaking the bank,” said Raymond.

The new contract is an approximate $300,000 increase over the last one for the 55 to 60 teachers employed in the district. Salaries account for $2,176,358 of the overall $6.5 million proposed fiscal 2008 budget, said Raymond.

Raymond said the district tried to find some compromise on health insurance costs, but the teachers did not want to give an inch. Currently, the district pays 100 percent of health insurance costs for individual employees and 89 percent for their dependents. At the time of the old contract, those costs were doable, she said, because of the low-end pay scale offered new teachers.

Raymond said the district costs for health insurance premiums needed to be reduced to 80 percent by the end of year three of the new contract in order to meet the increased salary demands.

“In the end, you got both sides not being perfectly happy,” Raymond concluded.