PTO Today

Our PTO did not have Bylaws in place - I have recently researced and written them for the coming school year. Our Executive Board has read and approved them. However, we were reading somewhere, we should have Financial Policies either included in the By Laws or attached to the By Laws. Do any of you have an example of financial policies I can look over and try to adapt to our needs. Thanks-

Ours start with a set of general policies:

• A general meeting of the organization will be held by the end of September to approve the budget for the fiscal year.
• Money raised by this organization shall be spent as specified in the approved budget. Any additional expenditure must be approved by a majority vote the Executive Board.
• This PTO shall not be liable for any non-budgeted monetary expenditure of $100 or more without submission of such expenditures to the Executive Board for approval.
• The PTO shall not be liable for any non-budgeted monetary expenditures of less than $100 without prior approval of the PTO President and two additional Executive Board Members.
• PTO Board Members have the obligation to be conservative in the use of PTO funds and to report to the Board at monthly meeting regarding to the intended use of any budgeted funds.
• In order for PTO funds to be disbursed (for a reimbursement or to initiate a payment to an external company) a “Funds Authorization” request must be completed.
• All Funds Authorization forms must be signed by at least two (2) Executive Board members and submitted with receipts or appropriate order paperwork.
• All reimbursement requests must be submitted within 60 days of the expense.
• All PTO checks must be signed by two (2) authorized Board members.
• Any commitment of funds that does not follow these policies is the personal responsibility of the initiator.

I uploaded this file to the File Exchange. Look under Bylaws/Policies and the Finance area. You can learn more there.

Thanks so much...It will feel so good to get all this completed. Next chore is to call the IRS. Nothing has ever been filed with them...we're kind of scared!

You shouldn't be scared of the IRS ... they're actually pretty friendly to non-profits, in my experience. They know you're a volunteer organization and that it can be a chore to fill in their forms, but they want you to do it.

Our PTO had apparently never filed anything in 20 years of existence, and we were even using an invalid EIN (the IRS said they had no record of it ever being issued, never mind filed under). I filed 1023 in March and am still waiting for a response.

I must have had one of the draft versions on my computer as I see a few areas where the grammar needs to be corrected. I don't believe I can retract the one in the file exchange and replace, but I think you get the idea.

You always need to read these samples and edit for your own use anyway. For example, in our PTO the Board conducted all business and we only had general meetings twice a year. That's why the "board" is mentioned so much. In someone else's situation, it might be a vote of the general membership.