Question: Can PTA and/or PTO's purchase kids items?

Our state PTA tells us we can not spend any money on a child that coomes to our school, without a coat during winter, or shoes in bad condition. She claims its an IRS regulation. I cant find any info to back her claim. We WILL also be moving to a PTO come July.

Asked by Lindley

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Rockne writes:
Hi Lindley - I'd answer a couple of ways: 1) If your membership agrees that it wants to make supporting kids at your school in this way a part of your mission, then i think that would be fine. Making sure that your schoolkids have the basics they need to learn I think can certainly be argued as well-within the fairly general definitions of what your PTA is all about. I would suggest you do it in a systematic way (maybe through your guidance office or the like), as opposed to just buying individual kids coats whenever you like. 2) I'm also sure that it your group -- with a $20,000 annual budget -- spends $42 on a winter coat for a cold kid, you're not going to get in any trouble at all. There are rules. And there is also common sense.

Community Advice

kat.taylor writes:
Our PTA just donated five HUGE boxes of unclaimed coats, hats, and gloves from the lost and found. I had the idea to save a some of the coats to donate to our own students. I have no idea if our school will allow this, but I am going to ask. Maybe this would work for your school, also.