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Sandoval County renews contract with Sandoval Economic Alliance after FY2025 report
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Summary
Commissioners heard Sandoval Economic Alliance’s FY2025 annual report summarizing business retention and attraction work, then approved the FY2026 professional services agreement to continue county-funded economic development services; the presentation included visit counts, survey results and an estimated return on investment.
The Sandoval County Board of County Commissioners on Wednesday received Sandoval Economic Alliance’s (SEA) fiscal-year 2025 annual report and approved a renewal of the county’s professional services agreement to continue SEA’s economic-development work.Fred Shepherd, president and CEO of the Sandoval Economic Alliance, presented the FY2025 summary and described SEA’s role as a county-contracted, confidential resource for business attraction, retention and expansion. Shepherd told the commission SEA completed 42 business visits in the contract year—19 in rural parts of the county and 23 in Rio Rancho—and that SEA’s business retention work targets so-called stage 2 companies with roughly 10–99 employees.“If these companies do what they say they would like to do, it'd be a net gain of just of a 183 jobs within our community amongst those companies,” Shepherd said, citing SEA’s follow-up surveys and client reporting.The nut graf: The commission approved a one-year renewal (with previously authorized renewal options) of SEA’s contract for FY2026 and will receive quarterly updates and a first quarterly report scheduled for October; SEA’s annual report was presented to fulfill contract reporting requirements and to inform commissioners’ oversight of deliverables.Report highlights and figures:SEA reported it completed 42 visits to economic-base companies, surveyed more than 100 firms and received 20 responses. Of those respondents, 14 said they planned to expand and SEA estimated a net gain of roughly 183 jobs and about 130,000 square feet of facility expansions among survey respondents.Since January 2020, SEA said it assisted 20 projects that together produced 1,144 direct jobs (285 of those jobs from companies relocating into the county), an additional 232 indirect and induced jobs in conservative modeling, and a total of roughly 1,376 jobs overall; SEA staff estimated cumulative projected tax revenue tied to those projects at about $57.9 million and reported a return of more than $44 in projected tax revenue for every county dollar invested in SEA.Staff and commissioners also discussed funding partners. Shepherd said the City of Rio Rancho’s contribution to SEA remained at $75,000 for the current contract year and that the city would need to issue its own RFP if it wished to increase the amount. Commissioners asked about SEA’s confidentiality for prospective projects and Shepherd confirmed SEA provides confidential services and works in coordination with the state, the Albuquerque Regional Economic Alliance and local chambers of commerce.Sea branding change: Shepherd also said SEA had updated its logo and removed the Zia symbol after consultation with Zia Pueblo, replacing it with a stylized mountain and ribbon intended to represent collaboration across attraction, retention and entrepreneurship.VOTE AND CONTRACT:County staff brought forward a request to approve the FY2026 professional services agreement with SEA and to authorize the county manager to approve subsequent contract amendments as necessary. The commission voted to approve the contract renewal and staff will calendar quarterly reportings moving forward. Roll-call recorded in the transcript shows the motion carried unanimously (Commissioner Jones: yes; Commissioner Hurst: yes; Commissioner Brook: yes; Vice Chair Juarez: yes; Chair Meek: yes).ENDING: Commissioners asked staff to continue providing monthly SEA updates and to place the first quarterly SEA report on the October agenda for the commission’s review.
