I don't know if it is a state thing but school district policy prohibits any employee from being a signer on the PTO bank account.
Our district is very micro-managing and the principal wants a financial report separate from the ones the Treasurer does at the meetings. Along with all sorts of other stuff she has no right or business to. We have been walking a fine line but the Board is about to put a kibosh on some of this stuff, within our by-laws and the district policies of course.
It does work for some schools, I think particularly small schools that have had trouble with funds being misplaced or stolen by PTO officers. At our school, the principal is the only one approved to write checks, although I really wish we could get it signed over to our treasurer. My question is, how do you get a principal kicked off the checkbook?
Two years ago I turned the checkbook over to our principal. The treasurer moved on with her son to the middle school, and since parent participation is low, we don't actually have officers, so keeping the checkbook at school for easy access made the most sense. The principal, secretary of school and a couple of teachers are on the account. So far only the principal has written checks, so this works for us also.
I can only speak for our group- but we have our principal on our account for ease of access. In the past we have had a hard time getting a check sometimes because we could not reach the treas. But the principal is always at school. Our principal sits on our board as vice-treas. It may not be right for every group, but we have a really small school & a great principal that is really involved in our group & we totally trust that she will only use that money when approved by our group. It is not a control issue-she did not ask to be on the account. We are separate from the school, so there is no accounting to "them". For us, it really is just easier.
don't understand why so many PTO/ PTA organizations have the Principals on the bank account. The school has it's money, we have ours. In the past when we have given Principals an "allowance" they have done stuff like buy themselves a laptop two weeks before they resigned, and taken it with them. Sad but true- we no longer give Teachers or the Principal money- they request stuff and we approve or deny the requests in an open meeting. At our school only the PTO president and the PTO Treasurer can write checks or access the funds. The bank statements are printed out and at every meeting, anyone who wants a copy can have one. When it was suggested by the bank that we get a debit card for the account, no one wanted that liability. No one here is eager to have access to PTO money since they are worried about finger pointing in the event of any inconsistencies
