PTO Today

Every year our HSA sponsors a Fun Day for our students the cost of which is paid by the HSA. It's pretty much a carnival type event with inflatable rides, games, prizes, cotton candy, etc. The budget for the event this year is $3,000. The co-chairs of the event (our ex-co-presidents from last year) have brought us a contract for $3,650, not including the costs of food for the volunteers, ice for the snow cones, bags for the cotton candy, etc., which will send the cost closer to $4,000. Now for the tricky part.

The budget that they left us with this year is about $5,000 less than what they had to work with last year - fundraising was very lackadaisical (sp.?) last year because they were in their third year and I would imagine tired and burnt out. Our budget is bare bones as it is.

The thing is, fundraising has been really good this year and we will have well over what we had this year. We could take the $1,000 from next year's budget. I don't personally feel that this is right. I can't see taking money from next year's kids to pay for this year's kids. This topic isn't addressed anywhere in our bylaws. The co-chairs knew the budget when they went into it and should have negotiated accordingly.

Question is - am I being too harsh? Should I lighten up and just let the kids have the day or what? Any comments/suggestions would be enormously helpful.

Hey HHH --

To me it's 2 different questions:

1. Dealing with folks who unilaterally go over budget, etc.

2. The dollars from next year and this year, etc.

The second one, to me, is often an overblown issue. Just as it's perfectly OK to carry over funds from one year to the next, it's similarly OK to move money the other direction if that's what your group decides is warranted and best for the kids/school. The dates are fairly arbitrary -- vast majority of kids and families are covered by both dates.

The first one is trickier. You'll definitely want to adopt some procedures and controls to prevent future event chairs from just spending whatever they want. But that doesn't solve current issue. Is there an easy attraction or extra to cancel to get you back toward budget? If yes, i'd strongly consider that. If no, then I'd try and look at best way to make best of current situation. Sounds like you're in the enviable position of being able to handle this overage -- so that's certainly an option. What else can you do?

Tim