I'm really concerned about the student/taxi issue!What or who are they going home to and why is it so awful for the school to keep the kid in their care. This may sound terrible or not must better but repeat offenders get to work at the school cleaning tables, sweeping, writing essays....busy work until someone can come and get them.

Sorry, I didn't understand the whole tax thing and I mean as in I know nothing about taxes! But to have a petty cash.....hhhuummmmmmm ahh to dream!

But then again, there's perspective to consider. One person's petty cash may be another's fortune.


Our former fundraiser was a budget analyst in her "day job". She used to tease me that since (at work) she just rounded everything to the nearest $100,000 - she thought it reasonable to follow that practice on PTO accounts.

I WISH!!


(No, I don't really think the money discussed in this post belonged in petty cash.)

Wow! Gotta love the "we've always done it that way so it must be right" argument on the sales tax.... At least it looks like you managed to get it paid, which is great!

Also, I can't believe they dump all that non-vendor sales money into "petty" cash!! Things like you mentioned have the greatest potential to be considered unrelated business income by the IRS, so if nothing else works, I would use that as an argument to get it documented. But, geez, even Webster's dictionary tells you that petty cash is "cash kept on hand for payment of minor items." Even the biggest PTO/PTA in my immediate area would not think $1000 as a minor amount!

As for the taxi thing--our schools just keep unruly kids in the principal's office until the day is over, as far as I know. I don't know that it would be illegal to send anyone home (isn't that just a partial day suspension?), and I'd like to assume that when they do send someone home, they are at least checking to make sure someone will be home and the parent/guardian agrees to them being sent home via that method so they will be there to meet them. What if the kid lives within walking distance? Wouldn't that be the same issue? Regardless of who pays for the transportation or how they get there, it seems to me that if a kid is dismissed early, the school needs to take appropriate precautions to make sure that a responsible adult is going to get them--seems to be only common sense. If you don't think that's being done, then I would definitely go to higher authorities, because the school is opening itself up to significant legal issues.

This really does sound like a major safety issue. I have to wonder what would happen if something bad happen. there is no way i would allow my school to do this and i find it hard to believe that your school board allows this just for liability reasons. Our district has a minivan to take home sick kids when there is no other way but there are two adults at all time and its district employees. I would check into it...it just doesnt sound right, at least if you check you know you did what you could do...=)

The situation is this: the child acts up during school hours and a parent/guardian will not pick the child up from school. The office staff (school secretary / PTO treasurer)then calls a cab to take the child home. The money to pay for the cab comes from the petty cash. I'm not sure how often this occurs but it has occurred more than once. I asked the secretary about these taxi calls and she gave me the impression that there is not problem. Would I be wrong to go to the district and inquire as to the legality of this? I do not think that it is appropriate to put a child unsupervised into a taxi with anyone.

We've never had the "taxi" issue come up - that's a new one. But off the cuff, and I'm not so sure there's anything particularly unique to Michigan about this, I'd say NO WAY to the PTO sending a child home in a cab.

If a child is left unattended at the school, it is the school's responsibility to care for that child. The PTO is not liable - the school is. That is, the PTO is not liable until it puts a child in a cab. If the child is left behind after an evening event sponsored by the PTO, well the principal should be on site and should take over. I guess if all efforts to contact the child's family or names on the emergency card fail, I'd call the local police and have them take charge of the child. At least that's my opinion, but IANAL.