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Q&A

Disbanding our PTA

If we vote to disband our PTA by not renewing our dues and becoming a PTA in bad stand, can the National PTA take away funds we have in our bank account?
- Ziggedy1

National--no. National never just sweeps in and takes money from local units. State--maybe. There's a difference between officially voting to disband vs. just not collecting dues in a new year. You should check your bylaws and see what they say about disbanding; they most likely have very specific procedures related to voting to disband. In my state, once you vote to disband, the state takes away your charter and you are supposed to surrender all assets to the state. So now no one bothers to vote to disband. They just finish up one year and spend everything down, then just don't have any officers run the next year nor collect any dues and let themselves fall into bad standing.

Or--you finish up a year and start a PTO for the next year. You still have money in your PTA account. So, you also have a PTA in the next year (with different officers from the PTO), but hardly anyone joins the PTA, and it doesn't run any activities. But you keep it going to spend down what is left over.

Just being in bad standing isn't going to have anyone come after your bank account, because you can be in bad standing for any one of a number of reasons. If you don't revise your bylaws on schedule, for example, you can be in bad standing, but it will take them some time to come after you for that.
- mum24kids
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