i posted a question but have not seen it on the board so i will ask it here. I will be the president for the new school year and don't quite understand why we have over 5thousand dollars in a CD for an emergency fund, as it was stated at our meeting last night. We also have 3thous dollars not earmarked for anything. It is what is left over from our 6thu. after our "bills" are paid. I am all for spending the money, so as one person said "the kids will benefit from what money they helped raise" I have been at the same school for 12 years now. I wanted to have a nice playground for my first grade daughter to play on and she is now a senior. she never benefited from the money we helped raise for the playground. It makes no sense to me to have that much money sitting around when you can begin to purchase small items and begin to build on the playground. I am very aware of how much playground equipment costs. My question to anyone out there is.... Do you all keep that much money on hand and am I wrong for wanting to buy some things with the money?
Hi Tim- I never said it was a law- I only said from all the training i have receivced this is what I have been taught--That generally you should not be raising funds for future years.
The NYS manual for Unit Presidents states "that there is no minimum or maximum amount established regarding carrying over of funds.. It will vary from PTA to PTA based on when they hold their fundraiser (fall or sprng). However a PTA should not raise more funds then necessary to carry out its tax exempt function. At a minimum , sufficent start up funds for the new year should be carried over. Should a fundraiser raise more funds than expected, the extra money must be accounted for in the budget and can be carried over for next year's programs." National manual states that each unit should have an emergency reserve funds. It is considered to be an intergral part of each PTA's planning and budgeting process. The emergency reserve fund is intended to serve as a means to retain financial stability in the event of an unforseen development such as unplanned expenses arising from a project or unexpected increase in inflation. As a guide this reserve should not exceed one half of a PTA's budget for an average year. If it does it is an indication that the PTA is not giving as much service to children and youth as it should."
in our case we had a start up reserve of about 9000..In Jan we were advisd to due to NYS budget problems we lost our BOCES credit of 7500.00. So we were able to take from our start up reserve for next year to make sure that those expenses for those cultural arts programs were paid for.
<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Susieq04: ...we can only operate on 1 fiscal year. We can only raise funds to be used for that year <hr></blockquote>
That's not correct. There is no rule that a group (even a 501c3) must spend it's raised funds in the same year they are raised. There are lots of good reasons for not spending raised money. JHB gave one (a long-term, high-$$ goal).
It may be in your own particular by-laws (in which case it's a rule for your group), but it's not a law. Families should have financial cushions. Businesses should have financial cushions. There's nothing wrong with a parent group operating the same way.
As far as what I have been taught that as a PTA we can only operate on 1 fiscal year. We can only raise funds to be used for that year--We cannot raise funds for the following year because that would require a membership vote and membership is done on a yearly basis and starts 9/30/ of every year. So in Sept of each year we put up for vote our projected budget with our anticipated expenses and inclome..We list our start up cash for the following year as an expense item. Also your officers may change from yearly since all of the officers positions are for only 1 year.
Our bylaws state that we hold at least $2000 for start up funds for the following year. We generally prefer to hold $3000. It's not allocated for any specific purpose.
Other than that, we try to spend our funds the same year earned. It's not a requirement as a 501(c)(3), but we want the children who helped bring in the funds to benefit from them.
Note - if we had a large purchase in mind, especially something like a playground, then we would feel comfortable saving funds for that purpose until the project could be totally funded - as long as it wasn't everything earned for the year.
Thank you all for answering my question. I'm sure it will be a great relief to know we won't be starting off next year with little or no funds for the kids.
