Our PTO group currently is having a debate over a request for funds to pay for a consultant to review and determine our school district need re: building a new school. It is the opionion of most of our board that our PTO funds were not intended to provide School district administrtation with funds which they should provide for necessity items. Any comments/ideas are welcome!!

No way!!!!! That one sounds way over the line. I guess you can do what you want with your money, but that certainly sounds like a normal district expense.

Most of the people that are helping raise your dollars won't even be around when a new school finally is up and running.

WOW! Who turned in that request? Principal? Superintendant? School Board? I'm in shock! No way would our PTA ever fund that. That is definitely a district expense. If your district thinks that's what parent groups are for they've got a lot to learn. Don't pay it!

Unless there are some very unusual extenuating circumstances, we would never support such a use of our funds.

Oh that is way too funny...no I don't think our PTO would ever support using our funds for that purpose. However, I have found that concerning our school district their attitude seems to be..."it never hurts to ask". Just one more thing to think about also...I have been recently told that NOTHING we purchase as the PTO is PTO property..it belongs to the school district and can be used at any time for matters not concerning the PTO...they use our paper all the time. If they do make a request for funds it would have to be voted on by the membership however...it is not up to the board to choose where the funds are going it is the decision of the entire group. And to be totally fair you could have the persons asking for the money to come to the meeting and explain why they are asking the PTO for it and also have someone speak who disagrees with the issue so both sides are presented fairly.

Chrystal, I've seen that "it's the school's property" stuff too but if you are organized as your own 501c3 and operate on your own then that's not true and shouldn't be true. It's tricky because if you use the school for your meetings and you use their copy machine and you use the teachers to help get messages out then there's got to be give and take. It's been hard for us, but we try to be independent.