LUVMYKIDS;145622 wrote: Here is a basic rundown of appropriate(well, my view as a business person and longtime PTO officer)budget layout:

You prepare a budget at the beginning of your group's fiscal year showing any balance being carried over from the previous year and then listing all of the expected income and expenses for the year to come broken down by program/event.

At the end of your fiscal year, you prepare a final budget showing the ACTUAL amounts earned and spent for each of the events/ programs that were listed on the beginning budget along with any additional items that were added during that year, such as an extra fundraiser, or a purchase of a DVD player for the 5th grade that weren't on the starting budget. Our groups' treasurers always just add additional columns to the original budget that are labeled as Actual Expenses and Actual Income and then feed in the appropriate numbers. This allows you to see what was planned at the beginning of the year and what actually happened sitting right next to each other. This final budget should also reflect the final balance of funds(are you in the hole or do you have a surplus to carryover?).

The next year you utilize the Actuals portion of the previous year's budget to help you set the current year's budget. You DO NOT modify the previous year's budget. It is complete. You might want to show it with the new year's proposed budget to help the members see what happened last year, to help jog memories, and to help understand why the proposed budget looks the way it does. If there are programs/events that you did last year that are not being done this year, you can point that out in the budget discussion, but the members should see the ACTUAL previous year's budget not a modified one.

Perhaps the current board isn't trying to pull anything, but just doesn't completely understand appropriate financial practices. After all, this is a group of parent volunteers not a corporate board of directors. I do feel that you are correct in wanting to see the actual budget from the previous year and not some modified version. It is just confusing and can give the impression that there are "sneaky things" going on.

See you said it much better than I did...lol!

Here is a basic rundown of appropriate(well, my view as a business person and longtime PTO officer)budget layout:

You prepare a budget at the beginning of your group's fiscal year showing any balance being carried over from the previous year and then listing all of the expected income and expenses for the year to come broken down by program/event.

At the end of your fiscal year, you prepare a final budget showing the ACTUAL amounts earned and spent for each of the events/ programs that were listed on the beginning budget along with any additional items that were added during that year, such as an extra fundraiser, or a purchase of a DVD player for the 5th grade that weren't on the starting budget. Our groups' treasurers always just add additional columns to the original budget that are labeled as Actual Expenses and Actual Income and then feed in the appropriate numbers. This allows you to see what was planned at the beginning of the year and what actually happened sitting right next to each other. This final budget should also reflect the final balance of funds(are you in the hole or do you have a surplus to carryover?).

The next year you utilize the Actuals portion of the previous year's budget to help you set the current year's budget. You DO NOT modify the previous year's budget. It is complete. You might want to show it with the new year's proposed budget to help the members see what happened last year, to help jog memories, and to help understand why the proposed budget looks the way it does. If there are programs/events that you did last year that are not being done this year, you can point that out in the budget discussion, but the members should see the ACTUAL previous year's budget not a modified one.

Perhaps the current board isn't trying to pull anything, but just doesn't completely understand appropriate financial practices. After all, this is a group of parent volunteers not a corporate board of directors. I do feel that you are correct in wanting to see the actual budget from the previous year and not some modified version. It is just confusing and can give the impression that there are "sneaky things" going on.

Ok, I'm confused. The budget that's in question, is this the new proposed budget, the old budget from last year or did the new board redo the old budget? If the budget from last year has already been voted on they can't change it. So are you saying that when they did their proposed budget for this school year they left out stuff that was done last year? If they aren't planning on raising or spending money on those activities they shouldn't be included in this years budget.

There was a final budget/audit done at the end of last year. This meeting was attended by the principal and the old and new treasurer and president. ALL of the info was handed over. Then the new exec board made their budget for this year and chose to do it their own way.
Can I make some kind of motion to redo the budget?

Yeah, that doesn't seem right to me. I'm not going into all the legal stuff because I don't really understand all the legal points to this but I can assure you that all money needs to be accounted for. What they are doing doesn't seem right. The NEW projected budget wouldn't include items they don't plan on doing, that of course makes perfect sense. But last years budget should be as it was not a made up version to just slap on paper. Why wasn't a final budget done at the end of last school year done anyways? My understanding is this should have already been done. Do you do audits on your books? If and when you do these false reports are going to come back to bite the PTO in the butt, I would think.

I tried replying before but not sure if it worked, I do apologize if this is a repeat.
Yes, they did not show all the money that was raised (or all the expenses) from last year's budget. The balance they reported was correct, however, but they are not giving an accurate accounting of what really happened last year. It is an entirely new exec board but they were given all of the information from last year, they just chose not to show it in this budget.
I brought this up at the meeting before we voted on the budget but they said they chose not to include money raised or spent on items they are not doing this year. I don't feel this is correct but I don't know if they are allowed to do that or what can be done to fix it.