Karen - If the school is paying for the background check, why not? I (speaking as a current treasurer) would be fine with such a check. Actually, all volunteers who are in the school during the day must submit to a background check.

I have a slight difficulty with financial controls, but I'm not really complaining: since I was the one who got us our 501c3, everyone (apparently?) just trusts me, and I can't seem to get them to count the money before handing me stacks of cash. Mainly, it's during an event, when it's hard to get a quiet space and some parents who aren't watching kids.

However, I did suggest that we get the fraud insurance (PTO Plus Gold or whatever) and thus we have a non-signer review the bank statements and we had a year-end audit last year.

We have several policies in place including 2 check signatures, a check request form-- that must be approved by the president or vice-president befopre a check is written and for re-embursement you must include original receipts-- we keep these receipts and are audited once a year-, we get our bank statesments monthly and cross check them , we balance monthly as well- despite having all these procedures in place-- we still have a few problms once in a while with oure treasurers followingt the rules-- they had a friend that ran one of our events-- we say we can not front money, you must pay for the item and get reimbursed-- or a check can be written to the company- if you know the exact amount, well they wrote the check to the person for an amount without pres,. vice-pres. signing-- and the the receipts ended up being more thahn the 1st check, so they wrote out a second check off the same receipt-- this is a no-no in my books, and I repremanded both treasuers... this can not be tollerated--

Despite having all the checks and balances you mention, our school's business office wants to run a criminal background check on our treasurers. Have any of you ever experienced this?

Two years ago, our PTO had very little money, no financial controls or checks and balances. Upon the election of all new officers, we were able to set up some really good policies. We started by setting up an effective set of bylaws (with help from PTO Today's site--there were a lot of good documents that we could pull from). We then required two signatures on checks, and every reimbursement must go through a public PTO meeting (or through all four officers if it's over the summer) so that everything is publically done. No one is allowed to spend PTO funds unless it has been approved by the group at a meeting. We set up a PTO website where a monthly treasurer's report is posted as well as handed out at the public PTO meetings. It has formed a much more cohesive group because now people know where the money that is fundraised is going. The morale is much higher among the parents and we've fundraised more this year than ever before! I think the best thing you can do with a PTO (or any organization, for that matter) is be transparent and communicate as openly as possible. The last thing that we implemented was a yearly audit by volunteers. Good luck to all the PTO officers out there--it's definitely not an easy job!! But it definitely is worth it!

Our PTO goes through our school. The hold all funds, and when we need a check, our Superintendent signs a check. This way no one in our group has total responsibility for the funds.

I am and have been the PTO President or Treasurer for the past 4 to 5 years. Approx. 3 years ago the Federal Government mandated that all Non-Profit Charity Organizations to file a Tax Return form 990. Our school system required at that time all PTO's/PTA's/Clubs, etc. become separate intities from the school. I set up our PTO as a 501c3 organization, and we purchased a computer and use the Quicken program to control our Finances. We use Purchase Orders for everything, and all paper work/check writing/etc. is done through the computer and Quicken program. Doesn't leave much of a chance for money to come up missing and we require that 2 or 3 people count money when have fundraisers and each time money is counted by a different person - it is logged on a form (each person uses a separate form) and initialed by who counted it. And we elected to have an accountant do the tax returns and it counts as an audit for the year. We had Bylaws created and all this was implemented at the beginning of our new set up. We have never had problems.