Thank you sooooo much for all of this feed back!!!

Thanks

I know what I meant but not what I say... Tims correct

Originally posted by Shawn:
PTA's are covered by their own and PTA Nat'l Congress liability...

Just to clarify, that's not exactly true. Most PTA's still need to/should get their own coverage.

A couple of state PTA's have insurance for all units in their state as part of the dues, but that's the exception not the rule. Most state PTA's have a "group rate" plan available, but the local units still have to buy that on their own. no national PTA insurance covers the local PTA units.

Tim

PTA's are covered by their own and PTA Nat'l Congress liability... PTO's still learning the nuances of that

Our Sec State liason in CA said PTA/PTO should probably either incorporate (indemenity for personal assets due to liability claims) and have their own insurance (general indemnetiy liability claims)

Incorporating and getting nonprofit status is the way I would go-- Its a little more work but as above -- that peace of mind when noone can actually provide proof of insurance

PS As Cape says above the incorporation-- for example the state of CA will even send yours back and tell you what needs to be changd in bylaws or articles of incorporation (at no charge) their is a filing fee but its (check) is only cashed once process is done

[ 08-15-2006, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: Shawn ]

Two quick tips:

Get the PTO Today Start-Up Guide

and

Write an extensive set of bylaws after 1) figuring out exactly how you would like your group to operate; 2)familiarizing yourself with incorporation requirements; 3)reading through the IRS regs, and 4)Reading lots of other groups' bylaws.

If you do that, then the Articles of incorporation and the IRS form are a lot of cut and paste, and anything that isn't can be figured out by suding the bylaws.

Originally posted by Phil Bernstein:

I am not sure about the insurance part of your question, but it seems to me that if your PTO is truly an extensikon of the school, the schools insurance will cover you as if you were an "employee" of the school (but this is really outside by knowledge)

The insurance issue was one of the main reasons we incorporated. No one could show us that we had any sort of protection if something were to go wrong. All the admins said, "of course you are covered," but there was nothing in writingthatwould prove it. I felt a little vulnerable running everything without the knowledge that I could not be personally liable for the organization's mistakes.

With the protection of the corporation plus our AIM insurance, I know I am most likely not personally accountable.

I would highly recommend taking the steps to incorporate (each state has its own rules) and file for 501c3. You can work on this over a year or two if you wanted to be cautious about it.

Even if you paid someone to do the paperwork, you could likely get through it for under $1000.

We did the work ourselves and spent about $700, including a $100 fee because I had to amend our Articles to fully comple with IRS.