Be careful in the way you handle your "excess funds" When I first joined our PTO, they had over 20,000 in "extra money" (how is that even possible?!) so the group decided to go on a spending spree, a number of new commitees were formed, classrooms and office areas got face lifts, teacher appreciation grew to an every month occurance and we began picking up the tab for some of the field trip transportation, started a scholarship program for our high school seniors and needless to say, raised the bar on teacher's requests being fulfilled. After two years of this kind of activity, our group has been lucky to have $1500.00 spendable money in our account at any given time. We have "locked in" $25,000 worth of expenses each year and are in a very poor area of a very small town, so rasing "extra'" money has been a challenge. Teachers and School Board members now feel that they are being slighted, when the fact is we just can't pay for certain things they have become accustomed to. We are on our way back out of this mess, but it has not been an easy ride. We've had to put a lot of great ideas on hold until we are able to fund them . . . all I'm saying is be careful on how you handle this money. Do not lock the PTO into someting that is reaccuring, spend wisely and make sure it is used for something the whole school can appreciate . . . and remember that the people who step up to take over next elections will inherit your legacy . . . make it a positive one

We have 3k in start up--but we offer 2 programs early on...(september) and we also keep our "membership dues" in a fund that transfers from year to year as a separate line item...that money is used for a specific target program (this year our science quad) and is how we funded our outdoor classroom (in another quad).

don't laugh but we usually are lucky if we end with $500.00, which kicks off the year until our fall fundraiser. If we make the money we spend the money...we are very good at that! hee hee hee

After making sure all our budget lines for next year are covered (we only fundraise once every two years and did so this last fall) extra funds will be rolled over as a balance left from this year. This fall, for the new school year, meetings will take care of trying to allocate that $$ out, either towards a future large project (i.e., a playground) or for smaller events, projects, etc.

There is an effort to try to not let large extra amounts of funds linger around too long. Hey - our parents, teachers and kids raised it for the school - why hold it for too long? Spend it on the school / for the kids!

...we do try to keep a small "safety" net as well, in case we have an emergency request of some sort.

We are carrying over about $4000 this year but most of it's going toward start-up (folders/assignment books, scholastic magazines etc) The rest is going to go towards our registration day. Parents wanted spirit wear available to purchase and walk out with instead of ordering and waiting so we are going to have many on hand. We are also purchasing printed water bottles and other spirit items.

Pretty much if we didn't have it earmarked for something and it was left everyone would have their hand out. This is what the parents want, so this is what we are going to do.

We also have a start up fund. We make sure to carry over enough to cover our costs for registration and open house events and any other expenses that will be occurring before we finish our first fundraiser. There are no IRS rules governing how much you can carry over for the next school year. That being said, we usually we sit at our last two meetings of the year and go through the school wish lists and take into consideration proposals and requests from teachers and parents on things that would benefit the entire school or at least an entire grade level. That helps us spend down most of any excess funds we might have.

Last year we had quite a surplus of funds, so we decided to make sure that our teacher fund was covered for the next school year and designated the funds specifically for that program. We were going to be trying a new fundraiser in the fall, so we thought that was a good way to insure that an important program would have the money it needed in case the fundraiser didn't do as well as projected.

I don't believe in carrying over large amounts without designating them for specific programs or events. It just seems to be a waste of all the fundraising work that was done to let the money sit in a checking account without a purpose. However, I don't think a group should just spend willy nilly on any old request that gets made just to spend down their account.