Cape Dad - whatever happened on this one?

Nice. Thanks JHB.

I hadn't tried that angle, since the principal said she thought this would be OK.

I think your Board members are not only asking you to make an end run, but to ignore your state regulations and to jeopardize your own 501(c)(3) status. If that much of your PTO leadership would benefit from the fundraising, it just would not be appropriate for the PTO to be involved.

I'm not sure trampling on federal law, state law, and your own ethics is exactly in the best interest of the organization. But, then again, someon in your group may know the right loophole that keeps this from being a total disaster.

If I read your state regs correctly, any school club/organization that raises funds must deposit those funds in a designated, school-controlled bank account called the {School name} Internal Fund.

Read over Chapter 7 of Financial and Program Cost Accounting and Reporting for Florida Schools(Redbook 2001)
DOE - Office of Funding and Financial Reporting

I'll list a few quotes below. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could claim this school chorus is NOT a school organization and therefore not subject to your state regulations.

Please keep us posted as to what happens.

BANK ACCOUNTS
Each school shall have only one checking account which shall be entitled "(SCHOOL NAME) Internal Fund, The School District of ________ County Florida," or alternative which clearly identifies the school and school district. This account title must be imprinted on all internal fund

checks and deposit slips. All monies received by the school will be deposited intact as collected into this account and all disbursements will be made by checks drawn on this account. ...

All collections received by any club or school organization must be deposited in the school internal fund.

Thanks for the replies.

This fund raiser (it is actually going to be three fund raisers) was planned and organized by some chorus parents, technically without any involvement from our PTO. These parents are great volunteers and also PTO Board members.

They are now realizing (recalling) how difficult it can be to deal with the school's financial controls and policies regarding collecting money and want this stuff to run through us because we have better systems -- better controls and yet more efficient -- hence much easier on the volunteers.

My feeling is that since it is not our fundraiser, it should not be on our books. If the chorus would have come to us initially, we could have gone through the process and possibly come up with the dollars they are looking for. I think that if we are going to step up our programs, however, that we would do so to buy technology or media equipment and not send 75 kids to NYC. Participation in this pushes the limits regarding our purpose, too.

It was not intentional, but what my board members are asking me to do is make an end run around our procedures, reverse our way around the school's procedures, and then reverse again to bypass our process for disbursing.

In the end, if we do this, we'll have an additional $20k plus on the books with no documentation on why, then we will have that same amount going out, with bills but no documentation of the decision to accept these bills. To boot, most of the board would go on the trip that this ill-documented fund raiser paid for.

We would not handle money for another school group. When our students raise money for their camp, for example, the checks are made out to and deposited into the shcool's account, not the PTO's. Parents oversee the fundraiser, but it's not billed as a PTO project.

We are trying something new this year. At our last mtg we voted that ALL fundraising in the school is going to come under the PTO umbrella and the teachers/prinicipal were sooooo relieved but a little apprehensive about the PTO "taking over." We are doing this for two reasons. One, teachers have enough to do without worrying whether the classes have field trip/enrichment funding. Secondly, to increase participation in the PTO. For example, by telling the third grade parents that the BIG spring trip will not cost them $200 each out of pocket if the PTO raises enough funds to cover the trip, they are more likely to stand in the cold and sell raffle tickets outside the grocery store.

We struggled with understanding the conflict of interest. While some things seem obvious like not letting the treasurer vote on a contract that her brother bid on, some things are very unclear. After all, when we vote to spend any money for the school, aren't all of our children benefitting?