I would venture to guess that there is some stipulation in district or state policy regarding paying for parents expenses, but if you are an independent organization and your membership votes to cover the expenses I can't understand why the school's governing committee can restrict how those funds are used. Maybe they misunderstood the policy or are interpreting this situation as falling under the section of the 501c3 requirements that states that no member of the organization shall financially benefit directly from the group(it's something like that, I couldn't find the exact wording).

We had similar situation at our school where a student team qualified for a state academic competition. The district would pay for all of the students expenses, but not lodging since the parents would be using the rooms too. Our PTO voted to pay for the lodging. As far as we know our district has no issue with this.

Althought your situtation has been resolved by the generous parent with the FF miles, you should clarify this for the future. If any fundraiser is done with a clear indication of what the money will be used for (in this case for families [parents included] to attend the national event, then there is no misrepresentation on the part of the school or PTO, nor is there any misuse of funds. Set up a separate line item on your budget to track the income of that fundraiser and the expenses as well.
I don't understand the reason for a town School Committee as well as a PTO, so the dynamics there seem to be much different than just having a PTO. However, you should clearly outline for future situations that may arise where the PTO feels its OK, you get board approval and then the SC disapproves it.

I think it's a great question, presidentJim. I hope some more PTOers chime in as well as I'd like to hear what others have to say on the subject.

Thanks for the thoughts everyone...

Digging deeper is tough here as I don't want to make an issue out of something that isn't effectively affecting things. Since we had a parent willing to donate his miles to purchase the tickets for the parents this turned out to not be an issue.

From what the Principal explained the School Committee had no issues with the funds being spent on the children, but specifically stated that they "could not" be spent on the parents.

One of the other parents stated to the Principal that this did not seem right as they could not expect the children to attend without being accompanied by a parent. But again, since one of the parents offered the miles this issue went away.

But the whole thing got me interested into just what authority a Principal, Superintendant of Schools and/or School Committee has over a non-profit, incorporated PTO's spending.

Thanks,
PresidentJim

I'm with CC on this. If you are required to get preapproval which states the reason for the fundraiser on the request you should be go to go. Sounds like there is something under the surface here. Dig deeper.

It seems to me that you ran everything right. If fundraisers require preapproval then the School Committee knew about it up front. If it was advertised as being for this specific use then participants knew and still willingly donated.

If the school, and therefore the students, benefit from having the principal and these four families participate in this event and the PTO went through all of the appropriate motions to raise the funds then I see no conflict.

Are there restrictions related to the event itself that prevent families from seeking financial assistance from the school/parent group? If so, those reasons should be communicated. But for the School Committee to just say, "No, because we said so." isn't enough.

Here's the big question. If these funds were raised exclusively for the travel expenses of event attendees and now you can't use them for that purpose, for what purpose do you use them? Who decides?