RSU 10 Business Manager Leah Kaulback discusses a 2019-20 budget proposal with directors Monday night in Mexico. (Rumford Falls Times photo by Marianne Hutchinson)MEXICO — The Regional School Unit 10 board of directors on Monday unanimously approved a contract for bus driver/custodian positions that includes a 3 percent pay raise for those at the top of the pay scale.

The base hourly pay for the 40-hour-per-week, full-year positions increased from $13.97 to $15.68. The contract runs through June 30, 2021.

The district pays 91 percent of single employees’ insurance and 81 percent of those with families. The new contract changes those to 90 percent and 80 percent, respectively, in 2019-20, according to an email from Superintendent Deb Alden last week.

Also the board voted 9-1 to pursue a plan to move the district’s fifth-grade Meroby Elementary School students and fifth-grade Rumford Elementary School students to Mountain Valley Middle School next year to ease overcrowding in the elementary schools. Director Peter DeFilipp of Mexico cast the dissenting vote.

A proposal at board meetings in January to move all of the district’s pre-K to second-grade students to Meroby Elementary School and all third through fifth grades to Rumford Elementary School was met with much criticism from several parents and educators who felt that change would be disruptive to students.