PTO Today

Our PTA has a popcorn machine. Do we need to give it to the school and have them give it back to us as a PTO? I was told we should just donate it to the school and not expect it back. Any thoughts??

Either way could work. It just boils down to who needs to own it in the long term.

(Note - for others on the Forum - this situation arises becase the dissolving PTA wants to liquidate it's assets before it goes out of existance, but wants to make sure the machine is still used for the same school/parent group events in the future.)

Whomever is going to be responsible for the machine and maintain it should own it. That's not to say you can't let each other USE it or contribute towards it's maintenance..

Considerations
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• If it breaks, who will pay to have it fixed?</font>
• Who will assure it is used, cleaned, and stored properly?</font>
• If someone were injured using the machine, who could be considered liable as the owner?</font>
• Who sets the policies on who can borrow the machine?</font>

Regardless of verbal understandings, whomever owns it ultimately has the rights to do whatever they want with it - sell it, give it away, fix it/not fix it, loan it out, etc.

It's really your organization's decision. In our elementary PTO, there was very little distinction as to who owned the popcorn, snowcone, and cotton candy machines. They were stored in a school closet and whomever needed them used them.

[b]However[/b] the principal wanted the technical ownership to remain with the PTO simply because then he didn't have to deal with all the other organizations and other schools asking to borrow the equipment. It wasn't "his" to loan.

[ 10-06-2006, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: JHB ]