I agree with you, Daddio, that things like salaries and school materials should not be paid for by a PTO. However, in our case, there simply isn't enough money in the budget that our principal has to work with to pay for those things. The school district has cut her budget (along with all non-title 1 elementary schools) over 9% in the last two years. I have seen her budget (and those of the neighboring elementary schools). They have cut all they can without cutting teachers. We lost custodial time, nurse time, and library aide time (the librarian got cut a long time ago). It's either us stepping up or our kids going without. We have no art programs at all provided by the district. We only have music for 4 - 6 grades (one hour per week and it's voluntary). We do get PE instructors, but we have to pay for the PE equipment. We pay for all assemblies and most of the field trips. The money we receive from the district is bare bones. They had to cut more this year to pay for a salary increase for the teachers or they would have gone out on strike.

So we are in a tough situation. The district won't even pay for TB tests for our volunteers (TB tests are mandatory) next year since the nurse is cut back to one day per week at a school of over 800. Makes you sick, doesn't it? You try and push parent involvement and the parents have to either travel 30 minutes to the district center to get a TB test done or go to their own doctor, while the Title 1 schools have a FULL-TIME NURSE, science programs, math programs, paid parent involvement coordinators, etc.

Sorry to rant, but it's a really unfair situation.

I am blown away by these amounts!! We have an annual budget of 15k and spend about 20k per school year after special requests and such. We take in 25k per and we always have carryover, somewhere between 10-15k at the start of the year.

We supply buses for one class trip per classroom each school year; thus, we buy 32 buses during the year. The parents pay for any other trips that are taken. Limit is 3 per year per class. We do not buy any school supplies as that is the parents job to do so. We do not get involved in any staff salaries, school materials that should be paid by district or furniture/appliances. Those things should not be covered and paid for by any PTO.

we parents paid thousands of dollars for cafeteria refrigeration equipment out of the PTO budget....one would think cafeteria appliances should come out of tax payer monies....but not at our school it seems!

mom2m&a ....Wow I am glad to see it is not just me with an insane budget! However you have to foot the bill for some school things that we do not. $60,000 for your media center is insane...that is so not your job.

We purchase about $3,000 worth of school supply stuff and the rest is all spent on functions & events. Other then that there we give each of the regular teachers $100 voucher at the end of the year for classroom supplies and the specials teachers get $50 each for supplies.

It is the requests for all the extra stuff and the expense of all the requests for things that gets us this crazy $67,000 budget.

it is amazing how the free/reduced lunch people can come up with the funds. many people on those programs do not/should not be on them. apparently anyone can apply and the paper work is often approved with the information provided never verified.

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This is really a topic for another thread but this is a discussion that has gone on in my school for some time now since new food laws are coming into play. In my state if 5% of your student population is on free or reduced lunch you must abide by the new food laws, anything under 5% and you do not need to follow them. Out of curiosity I asked in the office what our school % was and was told that it is 5.5%, however they added that they feel that half the kids getting it probably do not qualify. The office people said they have been complaining to the administration for a while now that they feel many of these kids do not qualify and they are getting it because there is no verification on the paperwork. If you ask for it you fill out a form and get it with out anyone verifying the family income. They said that the suspect that when these new laws go into affect in 2007 they will probably start verifying them. She told me there are kids getting free lunch whose parents are driving up in $50,000 vehicles and the kids are wearing all expensive name brand clothing and yet they claim they need free lunch.

Serendipity, I feel your pain. We are doing our budget for next year and we are looking at almost $90,000 in expenses! We are a school of abou 825 students in grades k - 6.

I know you are all stunned by that amount. We are in California, land of school budget cuts (9% from our overall school budget in the last two years). We actually have to give the school over $60,000 just to keep our library and media center open and to have supplies for the students. If the school district actually paid for things they should pay for we would have to raise less money, but unfortunately in oour district the Title 1 schools and NCLB schools get the majority of the money.

We are lucky that we live in an area where the parents expect to give money.

Anyway, we find our best "fundraisers" are our Halloween carnival and our Jogathon. These are low expense events that are fun for the kids. We als rely on grants from local companies and charities. We have a person who does nothing but look for grants.

Is there any way you can do a pledge drive? We do this at the beginning of each school year. We do a slick brochure explaining that we can't give the kids all that we do without their support and ask a big amount ($180 per child). We have excellent response and then people don't feel obligated to participate in any other fundraiser.

If you really can't do any more fundraising then I think you should consider asking the parents to pay a nominal amount for the class trips. I think every parent could come up with $5 for their kid's trip.

I would post our budget, but it's a three-page spreadsheet. We have so many categories that like Serendipity, I feel like the requests never end.

I think all of you in states where your school board actually pays for things (like nurses, librians, teacher aides, even toilet paper) should thank your lucky stars that someone out there thinks that education is more than just books, teachers and a building.