School board approves $20,000 MOU with Sandoval County to digitize UFO Center files

Ms. Saucedo, representing Superintendent Dr. Dodd, told the Rio Rancho Public Schools board the district sought approval of a memorandum of understanding with Sandoval County under which the county would provide $20,000 "for equipment, scanners, and supplies to digitize the UFO Center's files." She said the district would acknowledge the county as a sponsor in district marketing materials.

The board discussed the administrative detail that the district would act as a pass-through for the county funds. Commissioner Mike Meek, one of the collaborators named in the proposal, said the district should not hold up the funding because of timing constraints: "we don't want to hold up the funding going through cuz I understand there's a timeline on that," he said.

Board members moved and seconded the motion and approved the MOU by voice vote. The memorandum specifies the funds are restricted to technology and digitization expenses; no contract term or long-term financial commitment beyond the equipment and supplies payment was reported at the meeting.

The approval formalizes a county-district partnership on a narrowly scoped digitization project; the board did not report additional oversight terms, reporting deadlines, or performance metrics during the discussion. The district said it would collect comment cards about the meeting experiment (adding the Pledge of New Mexico) after the meeting.

Next steps: the district will execute the memorandum of understanding with Sandoval County and proceed with the digitization project; no additional board vote was scheduled at the meeting.