Los Lunas Board of Education looks to establish a new foundation to help with donations

LOS LUNAS — Will the Los Lunas Schools establish a foundation similar to those affiliated with districts in Albuquerque, Los Alamos and Artesia?

The Los Lunas Board of Education took up the topic of establishing a foundation for the Los Lunas Schools in a work session on June 3.

The work session, which included a presentation by Superintendent Susan Chavez on the foundation, was for information and questions only. The board did not discuss it further in the special board meeting called later in the evening.

The topic initially came up at a board meeting on May 20. On that night, the board voted 4-1 to table all action until the board had a chance to schedule a work session so board members could ask questions and get more information on the proposal.

“(Starting a foundation) has been something that we’ve discussed for several years within the district and within our cabinet members,” Chavez explained on the Thursday following the work session. “But it really came to be when the (COVID) pandemic hit and as I explained before with Meta and their generous donation. We needed to have the 501(c)3 … if we had the foundation at that point, it would have made things that much easier but because we didn’t, it added some levels of complication that didn’t really need to be there.”

Those complications resulted in Los Lunas Schools partnering with a local non-profit to receive the donation from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, she explained.

During the May 20 meeting and the June work session, Chavez emphasized board approval was a required first step to establishing a foundation for the school district.

While Chavez said she and district staff members did have a video conference with Albuquerque Public Schools Foundation Executive Director Shannon Barnhill, the Los Lunas Schools foundation would be staffed by volunteers and will not be as large as the APS foundation.

“(Los Lunas Schools) would still be connected to it, but (the district) wouldn’t be running it,” said Chavez. “So there would be events like the golf tournament ... and that would be sponsored and run by the foundation.”

During the work session, board member David Vickers expressed support for creating the foundation.

“I think the Meta situation is a prime example of why we need a foundation like this because they want to get their tax-deductible donation in, and they need a 501(c)3 to donate to. So I think that’s a prime thing that we need to create that.”

Board members voiced concerns and had in-depth discussions about tracking overall oversight and financial reporting, as well as the process of how donations would be tracked as they went from the foundation to the district.

“I think that by providing this additional information in a work session where we had that open format allowed for more of a discussion to say, ‘Well, can we do this?’” Chavez said, saying the work sessions helped develop more of an understanding of the foundation.

The board will still have to formally vote to go forward on developing the foundation at a future meeting. Chavez said the process is a lengthy one and the effort to create the foundation is “still in its infancy” for now.