"Sunshine Laws" generally refer to the requirement that government organizations be open about their operations (allow the sun to shine in, not do things behind closed doors). It tends to apply mostly to rules about open records and open meetings.
Technically, the laws probably don't apply to an independent PTO. But as an organization operating in good faith, you shouldn't have any problem following the spirit of these laws.
Maybe it's a local thing, but what do you mean by "sunshine" law?
If your principal and your members, and maybe even your BOE, are fine with your parent group being a committee of the school, with the money you raise being owned by the school (though perhaps managed by your members), then it's absolutely fine that your group uses the school's EIN.
At some point in the evolution of your group, you might indeed want to establish your group as an independent, incorporated, 501c3 charity. But it's not required.
One last thing, don't think of $20,000 as "just". You're doing good things for your school and many parent groups would be proud to have raised "just" $20k. Don't sell yourselves short.
Please someone help us! We have been opperating under the schools EIN# since the begining of the school year. Now, a parent has said that we have to get our own EIN# and change the name on our bank account and we must follow the sunshine laws. If not, we can be sued.
This has gotten our board in such a frenzy. I am under the impression that we are allowed to use the schools # as long as they are ok with it. We are a small school and have only raised 20,000.00. I beleive the board may want to become incorporated on our own. We would then be a seperate entity. Do we need to still follow the sunshine law since we are no long a government affiliated board?
