BUCKFIELD — The RSU 10 Board of Directors has approved $43 million FY 2025-2026 school budget to present to the annual budget meeting May 28.

The budget meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. in the Muskie Auditorium at Mountain Valley High School.

The board took that action at their April 28 meeting held in the Buckfield Junior-Senior High School cafeteria.

Opposing the measure were directors Darcy Klein of Rumford, Erin Hinkley of Buckfield and Kristen Chapman of Sumner.

Business Manager Leah Kaulback said that as of April 28, the town allocation percentage increase will be 5.489%. Among the seven towns, the increase would be Buckfield, 8.8%; Hanover 6.47%; Hartford 7.7%; Mexico 6.6%; Roxbury 5.58%; Rumford 3.17%; Sumner 9.0%.

She said the local money to be raised is $15.259 million, with each town’s portion based on 75 percent valuation, and 25 percent on student count.

Prior to the budget vote, Klein made a motion to eliminate French from MVHS from the upcoming fiscal budget, which is about $56,000.

She elaborated, “My motion is not because I’m diminishing the French program in any way. I feel it has a lot of value, but looking at it objectively and how the student attendance in the program has gone down significantly over the last three years. We’re down to 17 students and with nothing in place to offer French in the Buckfield region, I think it would be wise, in terms of priority, to put the money for the French program somewhere else, for example, an assistant special ed director so that our superintendent can be giving her duties full time to her job.”

Mountain Valley Principal Tom Danylik said, “The view of this board at the last board meeting (April 14) was absolutely to keep French. From my perspective, it was straw poll that Mr. Buccina took, and it was pretty clear that French needed to stay in the budget. It’s a bit of shock to me that we’re having this conversation again.”

He said right now, the preliminary plan would be to have French taught for four periods at the high school, a prep/travel period for that teacher, and also having one period a day for middle school French.

Supt. Deb. Alden added, “We’re also being very cautious to make sure that this goes through and that we keep it in the budget.”

Director Peter DeFilipp of Mexico noted that in the Mountain Valley Region, there is a high percentage of people who speak French. “One of the reasons we kept it is that it kept their French heritage available.”

Director Ed Bulger of Rumford said he understood it the way Danylik described it. “That was the vote to keep French and that we were going to look into have French taught in Buckfield remotely.”

After a vote was taken, Board Chair Greg Buccina of Rumford said, “The motion did not carry, so that program stays in the budget.”

On another issue, Hinkley wished the board to revisit the issue of having the superintendent also taking on the role of special ed director.

Alden, who also is certified to be a special ed director and was special ed director along with being superintendent this year, said regarding the special ed director, it’s more about whether you have the certification. “So if there’s a superintendent who does not have a special ed director certification, they could not do that.”

Vice Chair Chad Culleton of Hartford said, “This is something that the superintendent has volunteered to do and it saves us $100,000 a year, so when we’re trying to cut, so I find it really weird that we’re asking ‘why are you doing this work for free?’, especially where we’ve clarified this with our attorneys…It’s a good deal on our part.”

Chapman made a motion to eliminate the superintendent from doing the special ed director position and to add a special ed director position back into the budget.

The motion was seconded, but the decision was not approved.