Our PTO stays out of this situation by running all spending requests through the principal. If a teacher or grade level needs something, they go to the principal who then decides if it is something he wants to spend some of his PTO money on. The PTO has three differnt accounts that we allow the principal to control (Educational Materials, Building Extras, Principal's Discretionary). We set a cap, but we don't debate individual expenditure requests. As long as the principal's request fits into one of those accounts, we pay for it. Personally, I am very glad we don't have a "grant" system or take requests directly from teachers. I don't think we as parents are in a position to decide if a request from the staff has merit.

We politely tell the teacher we have other activites/programs/etc that we have budgeted money for and we can't help at this time BUT if she can get a fundrasier approved by the school we can offer her volunteer help to raise the funds needed.
.....of course our President smiles and adds "If you have talked to the teacher reps or come to a meeting you may have known all of this or asked us sooner. but LUVMY KIDS is right and our Prez is.............

The function(and this is stated in our constitution and by-laws) of our organization is to support programs that benefit a large portion of our students. If a teacher comes to us with a funding need for something that will benefit only her/his classroom we will consider it and it probably will pass as long as it is: (a) for and educational purpose and (b) it is not an outrageous amount(less than $50 is best but not written in stone). We give each our teachers $200 to spend on supplies and "extras" for the classroom, so we get very few additional requests. If you have voted this request down, I would simply report to the teacher that the request was presented and the decision was made not to fund the item at this time. If you fund based on the same criteria we do, you could explain that too. It's tough to tell someone that they aren't getting their money, but yo have to make decisions based on the needs of the students in the ENTIRE school. One note: Don't make your decision based in any way on the relationship the teacher has with your organization. Your decision must be based strictly on the benefits to the students and the financial requirements of the organization.

I am new to PTO and just curious,
when a teacher asks for a donation from PTO for an "event" at the school. And the PTO board votes and the answer is No, how do you handle the end result? I guess what I am trying to say is this is a teacher who normally barely speaks to us, and now that he/she has asked for something he/she is chatty and friendly, is it going to end when the answer is No to their request? How should we handle this?
Thank you.