I have heard that if you are a PTO, the shool district has control over your money. I has been said they can use your PTO's money to fund things for other schools in the district. It doesn't seem logical to me & I would like to know if anyone has any accurate information about this.

We are a PTO and we govern ourselves. No one outside the organization has ever asked us about money. We did have to get our own tax ID #. If we used the cities then the city treasurer would have control.

Same thing as Gary. We are a non-profit organization and what we bring in and what we spend is all up to us. We got our 501c3 thing from the IRS 3 years ago and that definitely makes it official.

Fortunately for our school system. We have a great Superintendent, principals and teachers who appreciate and understand exactly what we do. I don't ever know of a time when they demanded or tried to misuse funds. They have always been curtious when asking requests of money. As the PTO pres. in my district we govern the money and where it should go. We usually divide in between 4 schools. K-3 get the better percentage because their a bigger school. 4th and 5th get the next percentage because of their help in our fundraising also. The middle school and High school get the smallest because their students no longer help us fundraise. We help with r.i.f. Reading is Fundamental. We generate $250 toward that. We gave each of our teachers $75 to spend for their classroom last year.etc.... Our PTo has grown the last three years to where we have been able to generate some decent funds to the schools.. Lots of work though. whew!!! :} Good luck.