Question: PTO disband

Our school is in charge of our money and we want it back. We went to Board and they said that we have to disband PTO in order to get it back. We have money in bank and don't want to loose it. Is it true that we have to disband just get in control again? Can't we just make request to have the money transferred? New to this and not sure what to do please help.....

Asked by cashionpto

Answers:

Community Advice

gjcoram writes:
I don't understand your situation. Is the "money in bank" not in the PTO's account? How did the school get to be in charge of "your" money, and why do you want it back? (Can you not spend it on things you want to spend it on?) Which board -- the PTO board/officers, or the school board for the town/district?

Community Advice

dcherry writes:
The money is in the bank but every time we want it we have to fill out po and wait and we can only buy what is needed with a po. Not sure why the school took the money over again was before my time. We want to be in control of it not having to ask for our money. So I guess my question is in order to get it back into the pto name do we have to start all over with zero or can we just transfer the money into our account.

Advice from PTO Today

Rose H writes:
Hi dcherry,
Don't want to answer you with just more questions, but let me ask: You do refer to "our account,'' so does that mean your PTO has its own bank account? Or, is there an existing PTO account and a school admin's name is the only name on the account? If there is a PTO account, the president and treasurer should make sure their names are on the account. That's the step you need to take to start making financial decisions and acting on them.

In any event, it sounds like lots of stuff happened before your time. Certainly, you can request that the money in the current account be moved to a PTO controlled account. But there are questions of how much it is and how big a fight you will have on your hands. We don't know the answer to that.

Beyond the money, your group needs to determine how it was organized and if it was set up as an independent group, it is time to declare yourselves as such and move forward, with or without the money, but with plans to make independent decisions (financial and otherwise) in the future.

Community Advice

tlcayton writes:
Dear Fellow PTO, Last year we had complete control of our money, this year things almost went differently. In order to keep control of our money and keep it away from the School's hands we had to get an EIN number, Insurance, and submit a letter to our School Board Office asking them to accept us as a PTSO, kinda of like adopting us. We still have to get approval for all fundraising, but they money is in our account and can't be touched by the School.