Originally posted by m2gymmom:
in our pto, it is almost always up to the general membership on what gets spent where. whether its $20-a million dollars (not like that million is ever ganna happen in our school). we have it written in our bylaws that anything over budget is voted on either in a general meeting or a special meeting (if it's time sensitive). if it's already budgeted there should be no question. best thing to do is to check your bylaws first, then go from there.

This is how we do it, though general membership has no vote on the budget in the first place.

In budget requests are OK'd by the board as funds are available. Over are brought to membership for prioritization, then the check is approved by the board when funds are available.

PTO does not deny requests -- only prioritizes or postpones. Only the principal can 'veto' a request.

in our pto, it is almost always up to the general membership on what gets spent where. whether its $20-a million dollars (not like that million is ever ganna happen in our school). we have it written in our bylaws that anything over budget is voted on either in a general meeting or a special meeting (if it's time sensitive). if it's already budgeted there should be no question. best thing to do is to check your bylaws first, then go from there.

Hi <dram265sad151>

At all the school's PTAs/PTOs that I've been part of, it has been different. The private school PTA would pay the lesser amounts and hit up "certain" families for large priced items.

One, PTA, would have a set amount (ex. $8,000) that could be used for requests. The "grant committee" (which always included the Treasurer and the President) met once in October to go over requests and again in March. A max of 1/2 (ex. $4,000) was allowed to be allocated in October. Once these requests were decided, it was brought to the general membership for approval.

Another, PTO, would pay these requests out of an account that strictly funded by fundraisers. We could allocate as much as was in the account, with the proper "carry over"/start up for next year as deemed in the by-laws.

The requests have to be first approved by the Principal before the PTO even seems them. The principal has to sign off on the request. Then the Philanthropy committee meets once a month, which always includes the Treasurer. Once requests are decided, they are brought to the general membership for approval.

However, with this PTO, here is what the by-laws state: The Executive Committee (the board) may approve Philanthropic requests in amounts under $250, the total of which may not exceed $2,000.00 annually, without the approval of the general membership. All items of expenditure must be reported at the next general meeting.

With that said, we haven't had to use this clause and don't have any reason to. It works better for us to ask permission rather than ask for forgiveness on the things that we are allowed to do based on the by-laws.

We use committees to make these types of decisions to move forward on requests and then bring them to the board to look at. The next step is to bring these expenditures to the general membership to vote on.

We have found that the more we keep them informed and included in the final decision process of where their money is spent, the more they stay involved, back us up and trust us to do our jobs. Besides, we have to show them where the money is being spent anyway.

I hope that something in the posting helps you.

Can you please tell me how teacher requests are handled and who makes the ultimate decision as to whether or not it gets approved. What do you do for small dollar amounts (say under $200), versus big dollar amounts ($500). Our current president thinks that it should be the executive board who makes the decisions at an executive meeting. The executive board will then inform the rest of us, the general committee, as to their decision. This does not seem right to me.