PTO Today

We recently voted on our budget for this year but I am concerned about a few items - When comparing last year's budget to this year's, they did not list everything that was done last year, stating that they did not plan to do it again this year. Consequently, although we raised over $16,000 in fundraisers, they only recorded $10,000 raised last year. I feel this is misleading and if they do not plan to continue an activity this year, it should still be listed and just put a 0 in the line item for this year. Any accountants out there?
Also, even though the budget passed, could these concerns still be brought up at a later meeting for possible revision?

Your budget for this year should include a line item for any amount carried over from the previous year and then should only contain the events and programs that you are going to do this year with their corresponding expected expenses/income. Including events/programs that your group is not going to be doing this year would be irrelevant to the budget and perhaps confusing to some.

If it turns out that your group decides to resurrect one of those discontinued events/programs, then the group would need to vote on having that program again and any related funding needed to run it.

As for your comment about the group only showing $10,000 of the $16,000 raised last year: do you mean that they have left out money that they raised and are not showing it as income for last year's reported financials? That would be improper. Last year's financial report should show all monies raised, all expenses, and any balance that is being carried over into the next year.

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

I tried replying before but not sure if it worked, I do apologize if this is a repeat.
Yes, they did not show all the money that was raised (or all the expenses) from last year's budget. The balance they reported was correct, however, but they are not giving an accurate accounting of what really happened last year. It is an entirely new exec board but they were given all of the information from last year, they just chose not to show it in this budget.
I brought this up at the meeting before we voted on the budget but they said they chose not to include money raised or spent on items they are not doing this year. I don't feel this is correct but I don't know if they are allowed to do that or what can be done to fix it.

Yeah, that doesn't seem right to me. I'm not going into all the legal stuff because I don't really understand all the legal points to this but I can assure you that all money needs to be accounted for. What they are doing doesn't seem right. The NEW projected budget wouldn't include items they don't plan on doing, that of course makes perfect sense. But last years budget should be as it was not a made up version to just slap on paper. Why wasn't a final budget done at the end of last school year done anyways? My understanding is this should have already been done. Do you do audits on your books? If and when you do these false reports are going to come back to bite the PTO in the butt, I would think.

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

There was a final budget/audit done at the end of last year. This meeting was attended by the principal and the old and new treasurer and president. ALL of the info was handed over. Then the new exec board made their budget for this year and chose to do it their own way.
Can I make some kind of motion to redo the budget?

Ok, I'm confused. The budget that's in question, is this the new proposed budget, the old budget from last year or did the new board redo the old budget? If the budget from last year has already been voted on they can't change it. So are you saying that when they did their proposed budget for this school year they left out stuff that was done last year? If they aren't planning on raising or spending money on those activities they shouldn't be included in this years budget.

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

Here is a basic rundown of appropriate(well, my view as a business person and longtime PTO officer)budget layout:

You prepare a budget at the beginning of your group's fiscal year showing any balance being carried over from the previous year and then listing all of the expected income and expenses for the year to come broken down by program/event.

At the end of your fiscal year, you prepare a final budget showing the ACTUAL amounts earned and spent for each of the events/ programs that were listed on the beginning budget along with any additional items that were added during that year, such as an extra fundraiser, or a purchase of a DVD player for the 5th grade that weren't on the starting budget. Our groups' treasurers always just add additional columns to the original budget that are labeled as Actual Expenses and Actual Income and then feed in the appropriate numbers. This allows you to see what was planned at the beginning of the year and what actually happened sitting right next to each other. This final budget should also reflect the final balance of funds(are you in the hole or do you have a surplus to carryover?).

The next year you utilize the Actuals portion of the previous year's budget to help you set the current year's budget. You DO NOT modify the previous year's budget. It is complete. You might want to show it with the new year's proposed budget to help the members see what happened last year, to help jog memories, and to help understand why the proposed budget looks the way it does. If there are programs/events that you did last year that are not being done this year, you can point that out in the budget discussion, but the members should see the ACTUAL previous year's budget not a modified one.

Perhaps the current board isn't trying to pull anything, but just doesn't completely understand appropriate financial practices. After all, this is a group of parent volunteers not a corporate board of directors. I do feel that you are correct in wanting to see the actual budget from the previous year and not some modified version. It is just confusing and can give the impression that there are "sneaky things" going on.

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Hey Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.

See you said it much better than I did...lol!

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"Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

I think what bosh1212 was saying was that the new budget looked something like this:

Item ---- Proposed ---- Last year
Income
Giftwrap $4k $4k
Cookies $3k $3k
Dues $3k $3k

Total $10k $10k

and what's missing are
Auction $0 $4k
Notecards $0 $2k

So that the total for last year, for comparison, is missing $6k in income.

So, it's not that the board is "hiding" money, it's just hard to compare apples to apples when you then wonder, how did last year's crew fund everything with $6k less income?

For our budget we maintain a "general fund". Pretty much all non-allocated funds are maintained in the general fund. As the year goes on, and projects, events, requests, etc. come up, sometimes we'll approve the request and then transfer funds from the general fund to an allocation specifically for the newly approved project...

What I'm concerned about is how you indicated that they 16K but only recorded 10K. That seems off as all raised funds need to be recorded...

PresidentJim