Hi there,
Our suggestion is you look in your bylaws. There may be specific language regarding how much money can be carried over year-to-year. We can't really express an opinion without knowing your circumstances, but that does seem like a very high amount to be carrying over. In general, groups carry forward only what they need in "start up" costs for the new school year.
To answer an earlier question, our bylaws require that we carryover at least $2,000, though in practice we've carried over $4-9K over the years. We establish our annual budget to leave us only $2k, but there always is leftover money. Not that we don't want to spend it, but sometimes you just don't realize the surplus until it's too late in the year to spend it on meaningful things.
For example, we give our teachers each a reimbursement credit. They have all year to claim it, even up to the last day of school. Any unclaimed $ stays in our account as part of our next year's beginning balance. We also have a carnival very late in the year that could net more than we planned.
All that said, I would be very unhappy if my school's PTO consistently held over several $k each year. The money is doing no good sitting in a bank account all year.
Continued gratitude to all who are entering this discussion. I just think it points up the need for a group like the PTO to have a national model that is easy to understand and follow. Otherwise, as is the case for me, parents will start every year wondering what it is they do and how to do it.
My own bias would be to see PTOs trying to start a year with an amount that they can budget effectively with. So, something like venture capitalists, they have the money in hand before they spend it. This might take each organization several years of putting a small amount of cash aside, but it would certainly be saner than starting each year needing to raise a specific amount for that year's budget. it would also tell the constitiuency that they were fiscally sound, and make everyone work as hard as possible to meet or exceed fundraising goals.
No, I got ya, JHB. It's just that some folks forget that the carryover system can work out evenly. As May and June approach, some groups forget how nice it was to have that head-start back in the fall. It's perfectly OK -- and recommended -- to provide the same head start for your successors.
The "let those who raised it see the benefits" theory has a fairly big hole.
As long as you start the year with a surplus and end the year with a surplus, then the kids/families in that given year have gotten all their benefits (meaning they benefitted from "others'" earnings at the beginning of the year and then left earnings for the next set of "others" at the end of the year. It's a wash.
Tim, I think you may have taken us a bit too literally. The point wasn't to spend exactly the the very same physical dollars earned by the kids, but the amount earned (barring a stated need to put aside extra funds for a future purpose).
