Let me first ask...do you have a large amount of surpluss that you have not spent?

This is not written in stone anywhere. The point is that you are a seperate organization that operates within the school bulding for the benefit of the school and children. Now as a seperate organization you operate amongst your group however you need approval to do the things you do. You do not have to listen to antything the board or principal tell you, but they do have the right to tell you that you cannot operate within their building.

When school boards or principals have tried to take over or control the spending of PTO's it has in many cases led to the groups disbanding.

My advice to you is to go to a BOE meeting with your other board members. Ask them why they are taking this position. Open the lines of communication between the both of you. What happened to make them come to their new ideas on what the PTO should be doing? I do not know what you typically raise or spend a year, but I would bring them copies of your budgets from past years to show them how and on what you spend the money you raise. You will probably need to prove your case in why you need as much money as you do.

For arguments sake. Lets say that you normaly need $30,000 a year to fund class trips, assemblies, workshops, family events, etc... and that you run 5 fundraisers a year in which to get that $30,000. Now if you can only do one fundraiser that raises say only $15,000 you will understandably have to cut away some of the things you are paying for. It is your job now to make the BOE understand this and attempt to come to a better understanding of each other and try to have some kind of compromise. The first thing you need to find out is what exactly made them come to their new decision. Good Luck!

I believe I read somewhere that as a PTO you are seperate from the school board and they can't regulate your money raising activities. Can anyone lead me to where this is stated or give me more information on this. We are having some issues with our school board only allowing us to run one "fundraiser" per year and wanting to put a cap on how much "supplemental income" we can make. I do not think this makes sense. With all of the budget cuts for education, I do not understand why they would not want us to make as much money as possible for our school. :confused: