In the 6 years our PTO has been operating, we have always bought our own paper, but we do use the copy machine. It would be crazy to make copies somewhere else. The office personnel, Principal etc. does not mind, as they know we support them 100 percent. We even make copies for the office when they need the help.

At the end of the day, its the schools decision on how to use the taxpayer money. So it seems like more of an issue for the school to consider, than the PTO, the services should they allow PTOs to have for 'free' and if copies are among those freebies.

Around here, indep orgs pay rent for use of the school premises/meetings and such so I would guess they dont get to copy for free either.

Might not make sense since indep PTOs also serve the school, but then, many things in life dont make sense.

boosterprez... I agree with you 100%. After all what we do gives the kids the things they cannot afford to and if we were not picking up the slack the kids would go without a lot. We are fortunate to have a BOE and Superintendent who fully understand this. A while back someone at a BOE meeting actually posed the question about our PTO paying for copying and paper and the BOE and Super told them absolutely not. They would never consider for a minute charging us for those things. They regard us as being unpaid employees who work for them and the school to give them everything from Assemblies, class trips, playground equipment, etc..

Getting billed for copies or paper is really just a shuffling around of taxpayer money, isn't it?

Let's face it, the money the PTO raises is ALSO taxpayer money, right? It may not be called a "tax", but it's still coming out of the taxpayers' coffers.

We raised over $52,000 for our schools this past year. We are an invaluable asset to our school community. The district considers allowing us to use the copy center the least they can do to allow us to raise monies for our kids. Whether the copying bill is being paid by district funds or PTO funds, it's still the parents' money...

One of our schools does copying for our PTO without charging, and supplies paper and even colored papers. Our donations more than cover the cost of the paper.

The other school (under the same PTO mind you) bills us $500 per year and will only do white paper.

go figure.

re: the taxpayer angle...we don't use the copies for personal use. We are using the taxpayers dollars to squeeze a little more out of the pockets of those of us actually using the school systems, so in the long run the money they spend on our copies saves them in tax dollars anyway

I'm not clear why anyone thinks the IRS would frown on this. To me it's a matter between the PTO and the school based on their internal policies and needs.

Schools finances are pretty carefully controlled and audited. If a district had a problem with a PTO's use of school supplies for school-approved activities, they would set policies like some have. From what I've seen, when that's the case it's more an issue of cutting costs and strict budgets than an ethical concern.