Our by-laws require nothing either. Our annual budget is about 30,000, and of that, 17,000 is for expenses pre-planned for next year already (so we don't touch it this year). We get hit for money so quickly at the beginning of each year, that previous boards started putting it away for the following year - so we should never in the red or short for cash those first few months.

Last year when I became president, we had about 15,000 in surplus over the budget (technically enough put away to run the PTO for a year if something happened where we lost funding). But, our new board has taken that down to about 5,000 in surplus (and all purchases were approved by the general membership, not the executive board).

We do want to keep money in the bank (interest bearing of course) in case we have a bad year so we can still provide the services we provide annually. I plan to keep the dollar amount closer to 3-5,000 in the future if I can while I'm still president.

We need to be fiscally responsible and keep an nest egg, but that money was raised for the kids in school today, not the one's that come later (after mine has gone).

Thanks everyone for your replies!! I feel the same way. Since we are not working towards a large purchase I think it should be spent. The other board members feel the same. Ultimately it will be up to the members on what we spend it on. I know there will be complaints but, isn't there always no matter what we do?? ha ha

I belong to two PTOs. The middle school one, with much less funds is probably going to specify $1000 in the bylaws currently being drafted.

The elementary PTO requires $2000. We generally leave between $2000-$3000 surplus on top of any expenses we know will be incurred during the summmer or that first part of school. So, for example, we know we'll have payments due for our T-Shirt order. That money is set aside beyond our carry-over amount.

We don't have a set amount in our bylaws but we do try to spend it down which is never a problem since we do a free family event each month as well as other stuff. So the most we have ever had was like 1100.oo and last year we ended with about $300.00. We have our first fundraiser start the week after the school Block party-second week. We never use to do this because we felt it was so early in the year but it also turns out to be our best fundraiser.

We carry over about $2000. This is enough to cover the assignment pads and folders we provide to every child. We do try to spend whatever we fundraise every year on the kids who helped to raise that money. We don't have this in our bylaws but probably should. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

We have a $1000 carry over for year to year. This covers start up costs for the new school year. We don't carry over any more than that because the money should be spent the year that it is fundraised...and benefit all of the students that year. there is one exception--we have a "sign" account for the new school sign. That's carried over from last year, and will continue to be until a new school sign is purchased.