Something to keep in mind and check into: IRS tax laws. We keep any "personal gain" (not for the benefit of the classroom or the school) amounts under $25.00.
We've decided to make donations of books to the library in place of sending flowers. A card is sent of course, usually comes from my pocket but I am sure you can purchase cards from your budget.
We have a special fund (ie. Bereavement Fund- flowers, small token of appreciation for a lost loved one, we even paid for one's yard to be trimmed ($150 job- only charged us $55) her husband had died and it was their son's graduation weekend (to make the yard nice for wake and graduation party)
Rarely use it and all must be voted on and unanimous (sp?)at Board Mtg.
It could just be used as a line item fund, a miscelaneous fund, or a PR fund. As long as money from a PTO/PTA is not going directly to stakeholders (ie. a profit or payment)
I've seen a few use it as just a creative way to boost morale or let others know the PTO/PTA's are not just fundraising.
Letting paretns know someone is thinking of them , rejoicing in their new family member, or greiving in their time of need should/could be an important part of making/ getting more people involved.
It can also be abused and open another whole can of worms (but thats for another day)
<font size=""1""><font color="#"black"">Liberalism is not an affilation its a curable disease. </font></font><br /><br><font color="#"gray"">~Wisdom of Shawnshuefus</font><br /><br><font color="#"blue""><font size=""1"">The punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to take part in government, is...
Flowers are budgeted for in our group under hospitality. I don't know that we have ever spent $40 on an arrangement, but we do try to send a little something to those staff and executive board members who are hospitalized. Thankfully, we don't have much occasion to send them.
If your bylaws don't address it, you'll probably need to resolve it with a vote of your exec board. Do you have good financial records from past years? If you can look at that budget's transactions you should see how the money was spent in the past.
We don't have all the budget descriptions in our bylaws per se, but we do have long descriptions of each budget in our treasurer's binder. Obviously no one can think of every possible circumstance and that's when the leaders have to make a decision, or take it to the members if appropriate.
One other comment - how do you decide what qualifies for a floral arrangement? If you agree to spend the budget that way, it's probably a good idea to give some thought to exactly who/why the PTO would send flowers. Don't want to set a precedent you can't afford.
But, we have a line item for hospitality that something like this (flowers) would fall into. BUT, we also would be setting a precident for doing it everytime it was brought up in the future if we did.
We have a disagreement between members on when and how the category of "donations" can be used in our budget. One member is insistant that that money was always used in the past to provide $40 floral arrangements from the PTO for births, deaths and retirements. However, current board members say "no" that money is to be used for other charitable donations to 501(c) organizations such as the Red Cross, Salvation Army, etc... Not to individuals. If a floral arrangement is to be provided in the event of one of those occassions, the PTO members can collect amongst themselves. Our by-laws do not touch on this - who is right?
