Thanks! We spent some time going over our bylaws and talking with both our insurance company and an accountant who works with some non profits. All have advised us that if they want to run their own checkbook with no ties to the PTO then they have to go out on their own. We have gone back to the 8th grade committee chairs and given them a few scenarios to work from. It looks like they are not going to go through with it because it is going to be more of a hassle for them to do that then to just let one of us sign the checks for them. It has just been a long school year here with difficult members who fought us on everything thing we tried to do.
Do you know if you have any bylaws that say anything about the status of the 8th grade activities committee? If the bylaws state your organization has one treasurer, I'm hard pressed to figure out how anyone can elect a second one for a different part of the organization. Your bylaws should also state who the checksigners are on your bank accounts. Generally speaking, if this is just a committee under a larger corporation, they probably just don't have the kind of rights they are assuming. The simplest solution may be to trot out a copy of the bylaws and show them that fact.
You can always spin something off and make it file its own 501(c)(3) status, but it's probably not worth the effort--depends how big it is.
We have a situation that the current board is having some serious misgivings on. At our final meeting for the year last night, our incoming 8th Grade Activities Chairperson informed us she had her first meeting and they had elected a treasurer. This treasurer was not elected by the general membership, I am the general membership treasurer and have the two seperate check books were kept by the general treasurer. They made a motion and passed before we really knew what was going on and they now want the checkbook turned over to them and the end of next year they are saying they will turn over their records so that I can file their information with the rest of the PTO information to the IRS. Now we are not completely opposed to them taking their own checkbook over, but I am not comfortable putting my signature on a tax return that I really don't have responsibility of all the funds for. Man I hope that made some sense! We are thinking they may not be fully covered under our insurance if the person acting as their treasurer is not on our Executive board. Should they now be filing to be their own 501(c) or keep them under us and hope for the best? Does any one out there have anything like this going on or happened to them in the past? Any input would be really appreciated.
