[PTOMomof three]

What power does the PTO board have to say no to a teacher who is requesting money? We have two teachers, the Art and Library teachers, they are draining our bank account. The tough thing is we do not vote to pass the request or not. Our members vote. These are the ONLY two teachers who seem to come to us for money. We have a staff of 51 who would actually be able to come to the PTO and request funds. Our Principal does know about this, he has to sign off on it. He is the type of principal who wants to please all, so we feel he will never say you've requested to much from the PTO.

The Treasurer has asked, when do we cut them off? It is getting out of hand, they receive $350.00 at the begining of the year and both teachers have well exceeded this amount.

Some of the things they asked money for, the Libraian just asked us for $480.00 to update her soft ware. We just bought her that soft ware last year. There have been may more I just can't think of them all. The art teacher has been a little more in the range of school products. She needed some bins replaced, she asked for $1000.00 for an author who writes about Butterflies to come in and present to the first and second grade. If we are going to spend that much money, it should benefit the whole school. So there are some examples.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to handle the situation? We need help!

Thanks so much

[LUVMYKIDS]

If the request is put to the members and they vote to accept it, then your board can do nothing. It's not the board's place to override the membership's vote. Obviously your membership feels these are valid and acceptable requests.

As for other teachers not coming to you with requests, has anyone approached them about additional needs beyond the funds given to them at the beginning of the year? DO they need anything? Is it difficult for them to come to meetings to make the requests? Should that segment of your requests process be revamped? If individual teachers don't have any needs, are there some grade level needs(for ex. does the entire 4th grade need new classroom encyclopedias?)?

Really the only way to limit what amount a teacher can request or how frequently they can make requests is to have it written into your bylaws. Of course that would mean getting your membership's approval of those limits and maybe they don't want to do that. You could also, budget your monies more specifically. Don't leave a huge amount available for random requests. Instead ask the principal and teachers to put together a "wish list" of items that will benefit the entire school, then purchase items from that list as your funding allows.

Let me say that I agree with your feelings that amounts that large should benefit the whole school and not just a small segment of it, but if there are no set limits and your membership approves the requests, you're kind of stuck even if you as an individual don't agree.

[my3strongtikes]

Do you have a preliminary budget at the beginning of the year? In ours we have it outlined so much say for art supplies, assemblies(although we have stated we want them to benefit all students). They are expensive to only be for say one class.
For our PTO the updating the software wouldnt even be voted on that isn't something our PTO would pay for. Wouldnt that come out of your school budget?
You might need to add a few amendments to your bylaws about teacher requests. Also do the members know that they have made several requests, are the pros and cons of each purchase being made at the meetings?
I think we have all been in you situation for the longest time we had our teachers requesting area rugs for the classrooms, which doesn't sound like much but they wanted ones that were $500.00 a piece and 30 teachers asking it got to be a little much.

Good Luck

[CrewChief]

I have to agree with LUV. The reason your membership has a vote is to have a voice. Clearly they think these are worthy expenditures if they continue to approve them.

A bylaws revision placing a cap on the maximum total allocations to any one teacher or classroom would help with your specific concern. And/or include a clause limiting the number of times per semester or year that requests can be made or a deadline such as a specific date that all requests need to be made by.

If you have long term goals for your excess funds and don't want to see it whittled away, establish some long term accounts and vote to allocate funds to those accounts. Once they're allocated, they can't easily be removed and reallocated somewhere else.

At my last school, the library and the art cabinet were two accounts we allocated funds to at the end of each simply because they did need the extra money and they benefit all of the students. Perhaps if you had a dedicated account for these two programs, they wouldn't keep coming back for more a little at a time.

We dedicated one of our fundraisers to the library. Whatever money it made in a school year was all the funds they had to spend that year.

[mommytlc]

I'm just a little confused here. Why doesn't your PTO board vote? Our PTO board votes on everything. We are usually the only ones at our PTO meetings. It sounds like you need to redo your bylaws.

Can you say no? Absolutely! Will it be easy? No!
The way we provide the extras to our facultyis through a "wish list" program. Every member of the faculty is provided a note approx. 10 days before a meeting.For the "wish" they ask for it has to benefit the classroom and the max. request is $25.00.Anything above that they have to attend a meeting and present the idea to the group.We keep a journal of requests and try to keep a $100.00 budget monthly.We try to grant as many each month.If someone is asking for $25.00 for Arts and Crafts we might only give $15.00 to give more wishes to all.Our principal does review them before the meetings and some he is able to take care of with his budget.
Good Luck!!

[ScottMom#1]

We have more staff than parents attend, so we learned a long time ago to give everyone a set amount to work with at the beginning of the year. We did set aside a certain amount for extras, but it was very small and once it was gone, we didn't spend anymore. We also noticed that teachers didn't mind spending the extra money for underestimates but if it was going to be spent because it was there, they wanted it split up fairly. Keep in mind, nobody wants to make someone they have to work with upset, and that's what these certain staff members depend on and they are working it to the max. Before I got really involved in PTO, I thought people wouldn't ask for stuff unless they needed it, but I learned that "need" is different to everyone.
Our principal would have told these teachers (and has at our school) to do their own fundraiser every 2 to 3 years and make do with what they raised.

[PTOMomof three]

Originally Posted by mommytlc

I'm just a little confused here. Why doesn't your PTO board vote? Our PTO board votes on everything. We are usually the only ones at our PTO meetings. It sounds like you need to redo your bylaws.

We are a new board this year and we were told by the old board that our members (the parents) vote and we can choose (the board) to vote or not vote. They suggested we not vote, it was supposed to keep us in a neutral place. Well, we are trying to change things, we don't get a lot of parents sometimes 12 this past month it was two. So we reached out to the parents and asked them if they would like to haev a home ballot and vote on any request of $400.00 or more. Well, they loved the idea, we just had our first home ballot and it went very well, they were the ones that approved the Libraian's request for $480.00 for her soft ware. But they also didn't know that we purchased it last year for her too. So I think we need to revisit the new policy.

Reguarding the By-laws we just completely revised them, they were "sad" to say the least. That is why I say we are trying to change things but for the better! Our Principal is just thrilled with the new board. We even asked to go to the PTo Today Expo and he could't have been happier to OK the request!!

[CrewChief]

Wow! I've been part of groups that asked the president to remain neutral and to vote only in case of a tie, but the whole board not voting? I can't imagine less incentive to run for a board position than to tell the candidates, "Oh, by the way, you'll have [I]all[/I] of the responsibility but [I]no voice whatsoever[/I]."

I know you're in a transition phase so I don't mean to pick on you. It's all a huge learning process. But I would also alter the way you do absentee ballots. If you're still intent on using them, consider adding a bit of history so the voter is informed. Such as:

To date, during the 06/07 school year, the PTO has allocated $xxx to the Art Department for a, b, and c. Should the PTO allocate an additional $1000 for a kindergarten assembly?

OR

Should the PTO allocate $480 to upgrade software that we purchased for the library for $xxx during the 05/06 school year?

Also, it sounds like you have two very savvy ladies on your hands. I suspect that if you set a dollar limit on absentee ballot requirements, that they'll just make smaller, more frequent requests. Along with an individual request limit, I'd suggest that you set an overall total. Meaning, if the total limit is $1000 and they've met that limit but their next request is only for $200 then an absentee ballot is still required.

[dlf]

Maybe consider setting up a "teacher's grant fund" at the start of the year and mid year and vote the amount that goes into that (750 dollars each time or whatever your budget will support). Allow the prinicipal to prioritize the requests and then everyone knows the money is there and no one teacher can hog it all up. You can set submission times (like 30 September and 30 April) and then fund the requests based on the principals prioritization and you aren't seen as the bad guys. Also puts a finite amount on what is going out of your budget...

d