Does your school district have a business manager? Does this person ever audit the books of the individual schools? There is no way in the world we would handle the schools funds through our account--way too many possibilities for problems. It sounds to me like the staff just wants a way to get out of some work and be able to spend more freely(without accounting for their purchases). If my school was doing this I would be really upset. As a taxpayer, I want to know where my money is going. With this method of spending there is no way they have accurate records of what was purchased. Some of the purchases may not even be appropriate items. Put a stop to this right away!!

Do you have a bag of worms here or what?

It is more common for a PTO or PTA to transfer funds to the school account and have the school write the checks to various vendors, etc for them. Although this is not recommended by me to do on a constant base it is legal.

However, when a school transfers funds to an organization, in this case a PTA, which is operating under state and federal organizations as a non profit organization on behalf of the school we have a legal phrase to describe this - misappropriation of funds.

What you have described is a process designed to "get around" the law about how a school can distribute funds.

You have a really serious problem here and I would not wait one second longer before contacting an attorney! I do not know your position within the PTA but if you are an officer you are legally responsible for this as is every other officer.

Your state PTA is 100% correct, the monies are seperate, seperate in every legal sense of the word. Your school is transfering money held in public trust to you to spend for them. The money you raise is not a public trust (although you hold money in trust there is a differance) fund theirs is! The school has local, state and federal funds to account for, I would be interested in seeing their books - if they have been doing what you say they have been then I wonder how they have been passing financial audits.

My advice is: Run do not walk to a good attorney - do not accept one dime from the school you do not have a clear understand of where it came from and why it is legal for you to accept.

BTW there are times and processes for the school to transfer money to you - one example of this is membership dues to the PTA that the school collects from the teachers and staff, but this is the PTAs money to begin with so there is nothing illegal in that transfer.

This is my first year on the board of the PTA (and my last at this school....my daughter moves on to middle school next year). When we (the new President, Treasurer, and me the Secretary) took over, we performed an audit of last year's books. We found so many problems it was scary. There were many instances of checks being written to stores or to people with no notation of what they were for. There was about $10,000 of the school's money that had been funnelled through the PTA account, raising our gross receipts to well over $25,000.

The State PTA has advised us to keep school money separate from PTA money. They identified PTA money as being funds from something that was initiated and run by the PTA. The principal is wanting us to keep depositing money and writing checks for the same amount for various things, all to make it easier on her and the school secretary, so they don't have to go through the process of getting a purchase order and whatnot. While I would love to make their lives easier, I don't think that funnelling the money this way is good. It seems a lot like money laundering to me (without malice, of course!).

At the beginning of the school year, the school secretary handed me a check from the Coca-Cola company made out to the school, not the PTA. She "told" me to go to the bank and cash the check. They use this money for Supplies for the teacher's lounge and cards and flowers for sick staff members. I have no problem with what they would like to use the money for, but I think this money has to be accounted for. When I said that I felt uncomfortable cashing this check, the secretary said "Why? It doesn't even go through the PTA account. Just take it in and get the cash."

Well, because I felt uncomfortable, again I called the State PTA for advice. I was advised that if it is not made out to the PTA, and is not a PTA-operated activity (or whatever you want to call it), and it has not been approved by the general membership, then it is not right to accept the check, much less cash it. So, the next time the secretary asked me to cash the check, I told her I was advised by the State PTA not to. The PTA Treasurer completely agrees with me on this issue. The President, however, thinks I am making a big stink for nothing, because this is the way it has been done since before the PTA was formed (when we were a VPO).

So, now I have made enemies of the school secretary and principal because they think I am out to make their lives difficult, when in reality I am just trying to clean up a mess from some of the things that have been done wrong by the PTA in the past. Last year's PTA President is also upset because she thinks we are trying to make her look bad.

It is on the agenda of our next meeting to vote to deposit and how to use the Coca-Cola money, but I think it would be wrong to add to our budget all of the school's money, just to make life easier for some people.

So, my question is, am I way off base? I am starting to feel like a leper. I only want to help, but the right way. Are there laws about this stuff, or is it just business practice?

Thanks for any help, advice and constructive criticism!