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Weekly Q: Should PTOs Have Their Own Bank Account?
This week’s question from our Ask a Question section comes from an anonymous poster: Do most PTO’s have their own independent from the school bank account? Ours is combined with the school’s account so...
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PTO How-To: Handling Bad Checks
Parent groups deal with a lot of checks, and eventually you’re likely to get one that bounces. Follow these steps to handle an insufficient funds check: Contact the person privately. Start with the...
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Video Blog: Can I Carry Money Over to the Next School Year?
In this week’s video blog Tim answers the much-asked questions: Can we carry money over to the next school year? — and — How much money should we carry over to the new school year? Related links:...
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PTO How-To: Keep Cash Safe
A few simple financial controls can protect your parent group’s bank account as well as your volunteers who are handling money: Accept cash at one place only. For carnivals and similar events, sell...
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My Tip of the Week: Protect Your Funds With a Quick Audit
While you’re winding down this year and planning for next, here’s a key addition for your to do list: Audit your books. If the word “audit” makes you shudder with thoughts of the IRS and CPAs, hear me...
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Parent Groups in the News Round-up 6/17/11
A hearty congrats to all parent group volunteers for a job well-done in the 2011-12 school year! It’s exciting to see articles cropping up about how PTOs and PTAs are spending the money they worked so...
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Preventing Embezzlement in a Few Easy Steps
We’ve had another round of parent group embezzlement stories lately. Earlier this month, a Wheeling, West Virginia woman, who had served as a parent group treasurer, pleaded guilty to stealing more...
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Spending Survey Shows PTOs, PTAs Under Pressure
A new spending survey conducted by PTO Today shows that school parent groups are increasingly feeling pressure to provide more money and manpower to help their schools offset education budget cuts. The...
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PTOs, PTAs helping families, keeping kids healthy: Our Week in Review
Here’s a look at some of the work PTOs and PTAs have done this week on behalf of families, kids, and schools: The PTO at the South Park School in Rapid City, South Dakota, held a carnival recently to...
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Community Pitches in to Help a Florida PTA After Funds Are Stolen
Parent group embezzlement stories are back in the news and it’s hard not to get discouraged hearing about school communities—and, specifically, kids—losing out on so much. But check out this story. It...
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PTO Today, PayAnywhere Providing Parent Groups With Easy Credit Card Processing
If you’ve worked a fundraiser with a cash-or-check-only policy, then you know your parent group could be even more successful if people were allowed to use credit cards. Well, now we have a solution to...
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Our Five Favorites From the News This Week
Here’s a roundup of tips, ideas, and interesting nuggets from the news for the week of June 24, 2013: Communications Tip: Instead of sending out information and wondering if parents care or even read...
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My Tip of the Week: Success Is No Secret
We get a lot of questions from our Facebook community about who has the right to see a PTO’s minutes or financials. The technical answer to that varies on your exact status (formally established...
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How Much Should PTOs and PTAs Spend on Teacher Appreciation Luncheons?
How much is too much to spend on teacher appreciation celebrations? A community member recently raised a question on our Message Boards about spending $1,000 for a catered teacher luncheon. She...
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Should Your Group Be Paying Taxes?
How’d you survive April 15 — tax day? I bet you got your personal taxes in on time, right? But how about your PTO? Is your group on the right side of tax law? Should you be paying taxes? Probably not....
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What Do You Do When Teachers Ask the PTO for Money?
A parent volunteer recently asked our Facebook community how to handle funding requests from teachers. Clearly, many groups think it’s important to have a system in place to manage these requests,...
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The Most Important Financial Protection Your PTO Can Get
Too many groups lose too much of their hard-earned money to embezzlement. And frankly, it drives me crazy. The most frustrating thing is that 95 percent of the losses would be preventable by making...
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IRS Makes it Easier for Parent Groups To Get 501(c)(3) Status
Great news from the IRS! (There’s a phrase you don’t hear too often!) The agency just introduced sweeping changes to the 501(c)(3) application process that make it significantly easier and less...
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