We've been a PTA for 8 years now and have things pretty well in hand. The one issue that keeps coming up is the budget. We set our budget up over the summer and vote on it. Once accepted, anything over budget must get voted on and approved.

Our issue is with PARP. Each year we're asked to hire the preformer to kick off PARP. It started out $450 and each year it's gone up. This year we budgeted $700 which was $50 more than last year. The teacher who chaired PARP came back and asked for $750 as that was the cost this year. Her comment was "Things go up."

In my opinion they're not finding an entertainer to fit their budget, they're finding an entertainer they want and then strong arming us into paying for it.

Another bone of contention is that PARP is advertised as sponsered by the teacher's union. The union gives them a little money, (much less than we give!) to buy the bookmarks and pencils and junk they give out each week if the child turns in his PARP form all filled out.

We did address this and did get equal billing on the "sponsored by" when the notice went out this year.

We specifically said we were going to publish our budget to the principals this year and make sure they understood they couldn't go over. Yet the president when confronted by her favorite teacher with the increase just approved it without even a vote.

We have a lot of other things coming up that we pay for that often go over budget. My suggestion is that we write an individual letter to the principal addressing each event, outlining the budget and making it clear that if they go over, it'll be up to her to make up the short-fall out of her budget.

Does this seem reasonable?

By the way, I was treasurer for the past two years and this year I'm not an officer, but instead chairing membership, family fun, school store, and co-chair on the budget, fundraising and nomination commitees, as well as serving on the principal's leadership committee at one building and the technology committee at another. We do include chairs on our board.

**it'll be up to her to make up the short-fall out of her budget.**

I wouldn't include this because that's the principal's decision to make. Instead, I would end the sentence by stating that the PTO board will be unable to approve such expenses as presented. What the principal decides to do on his/her end is up to him/her. Most likely, he/she will re-submit the expense so that it matches the PTO budget for that line item.

Because you are no longer on the board, this letter will have to come from the President or the Treasurer (but only after the board has discussed that this will be their strategy so all are in agreement).

Thank you, and yes, that's a good idea, leaving out what to do and just stating this is the budget, period.

And yes, of course the letter would be sent from the board.

We just approved a budget with a note that said items could run over without specific approval; our funds aren't quite so tight, and it was a nuisance to have to vote on a $50 cost overrun.

I think you've got to check with your members: are they OK with the board (or just the president) approving small overruns? Is the PARP (what does that stand for, anyway?) an important event, and does everyone think it's worth what you pay? We had a couple long-time enrichment events where the teachers just did it each year, and this year someone actually looked at the budget and said, "$400 for that? Let's find something better."

Every year the board talks about PARP (PArents as Reading Partners) and complains that ever year they want to spend more and more money on the entertainment.

We do support PARP, but it's not a PTA event, it's a teacher's union sponsored event that we help support and we're tired of them just spending whatever they want every year expecting we'll cover it.

We do allow a up to $50 to be spent with an officer's approval without a vote.

We're not at odds with the board or president, we as a whole are just looking for a way to let the principals know that we aren't a bottomless pit of funds and they can't just spend the money without asking first.

We have some teachers who chair events that are very good at sticking to the budget they're given, and appreciate that they are getting that! Then others who just aren't as considerate.

Last year we loosened up and started approving more of the individual requests, ($50 for a pizza party here, $100 for the zoo mobile, etc.) and let them know it would have an impact on the amount we could donate for field trips at the end of the year.

Sure enough, come the end of the year, we only had $10,000 to donate vs the $13,000 we'd been able to donate the previous 4 or 5 years, even though income was almost the same.

We have more students now too, thanks to a universal pre-k grant, so instead of about $12 per student towards field trips this year it's only $8 per child. Bussing has gone up, so field trips are more expensive than ever and we have less to spend, which makes the parents have to make up the shortfall. Some trips are being considered for cancellation already, because they're afraid parents won't be able to afford them.