Our teachers "earn" money for use in their classrooms by running booths at our carnivals. Whatever amount they raise through their own efforts is tallied in a book by our treasurer. As a teacher buys something, she turns in the receipt, the amount is deducted from her balance and a check is cut and given to the teacher for reimbursement. That solves all the problems at once. Several times, PTO has done the actual purchasing at the teacher's request and just deducted the amount from her account. The receipts are all stapled to her page for reference. Much better in our minds than giving teachers cash/gift certificates for a specific amount. Although, we do use certificates to a teacher tool store as prizes drawn at meetings. They are in addition to the money they have on account--a bonus for supporting meetings.
We tell our teachers at the beginning of the school year that they have $100 to use. They buy what they want for the classroom and then we reimburse them up to $100. We remind them 3/4's of the way through the school year if they haven't spent their money. Some don't spend it at all but it doesn't roll over. Works for us!
we eliminated the receipt problem by giving our teachers a gift certificate of their choice from either a staples/office max type of store or Hammetts. The teachers love it and are glad they dont have to save receipts. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Requiring receipts is a routine business practice and should be presented as such. No one should be offended. Critter's absolutely right. Just explain that the IRS (and probably your auditor) require it.
We, too, have a class team expense as we call it, of $5.00 per child that goes to each homeroom teacher. I think, though, that we may handle it a bit differently. We make out one check to the school, on school letterhead we get a receipt for that money. It is restricted only in 1) the amount per teacher, 2) that the money cannot be carried from year to year, 3) that one teacher cannot assign their funds to another teacher, and 4) if anything "tangible" is purchased for the classroom it is property of the school and not the teacher. The teachers are to provide receipts to the school secretary who handles the disbursements and if there is any money left at the end of the year that teachers have not turned in receipts the funds are returned to the PTO. We get our receipt and we don't handle the receipts/reimbursements on a daily basis. Did I necessarily think this would work, no? I didn't think we could give a "gift" to the school and receive a receipt from them and in addition put strings on the use of the gift, but it works. Good luck.
Before we applied for non-profit 501c3 status, we too handed out checks. However, the IRS advised us that we shouldn't hand out money without supporting receipts, since we can't actually prove that the money (a substantial portion of our budget) was spent in accordance with 501c3 restrictions and our mission.
Now we give each teacher a pre-printed envelope in June. Over the summer we suggest they collect receipts (or copies) and when they have enough to cover our annual allocation (set at our first fall meeting when our budget is approved), they can turn in the envelope for reimbursement. We never evaluate their purchases and we would never deny a teacher his/her refund. We just need the receipts in accordance with IRS rules. We've done this now for two years and it's worked fine.
