Thanks everyone for responding. I agree that we should not spend, spend, spend, and it was actually the principal of our school who informed us that year about the carryover. I did not see anything in our bylaws.
This website is wonderful and I greatly appreciate everyones support and interest. I hope I can give some insight to issues as well. Thanks again.
Our PTO set our own guidelines....we can carry over five thousand dollars each year. This amount covers all of our annual expenses ie: classroom accounts, field trips, asemblies..etc. By doing it this way we have found that we are always one step ahead. We basically look at it as an insurance in case a fundraiser does not go well...we only have to have one fundraiser per school year which the parents are real happy about and once that one is out of the way we use that money for all of the extra events we have for our families. If the fundraiser does not work well we always have the carry over money to tide us over until the next years fundraiser...that way we don't have to cancel any of the expected things and the kids remain happy:)
That specific question of "is there a limitation of how much a PTO can carry over to another year?" came up at the PTO show. (Were you there??) Anyway, both the lawyer and the IRS rep said there is NO limit set by the IRS or by law.
So you would just be looking at your own by-laws and policy for an answer.
It is spelled out in our by-laws no less than 500 will be carried over into the next year, but no top dollar amount is specified. I know of no fast rule covering this but I have heard the IRS has certain rules about constantly having 501c3 organizations over earning and holding funds into a new year for no good reason. If you had a fund budgeted say for a playground i think that is exceptable to them. Other than that I see no reason for you to spend spend spend just to get rid of the money. One thing you might look at is your projuected budget and goals and make sure you are not having fundraisers just to earn money. Have a goal, plan the fundraiser to fit so everyone doesn't work hard for no identifiable reason.
Can anyone tell me if there is a specific dollar amount that can not be exceeded to carry over to the following year? A couple of years ago we were informed that we could only carryover a balance of $2500 from one year to the next. Upon this info, which was obtained in the last month of school, the PTO decided to spend the extra money on the individual classrooms (games, supplies, etc.). If anyone knows I would greatly appreciate a response as I am the treasurer for our PTO this year. Thanks.
