Hi anonymous,
Yes, the first thing to look into is to see if your group has been set up as an independent parent group, or PTO, or if it is committee within the school. If it is an independent group, see if you can have a conversation with your fellow board members, get some history, and discuss how you'd like to move forward. Perhaps your board could meet with the school administration to see if there's any room for discussion about change and giving your group more independence to make financial decisions. It always helps to let the school know that parent groups can accomplish a great deal as an independent group. Parents really feel ownership in the group and work hard to accomplish things on behalf of the school.
There are groups whose finances are managed by the school district; they're generally referred to as "parent/teacher committees" rather than PTOs, as in a "committee" of the school instead of a separate organization. There are pros and cons to PTCs; you and your board should have some discussions.
I have recently joined my new schools new PTO board. I volunteered to be Treasurer and I was in the process of setting up our incorporation with the state and getting bank accounts setup. Now through a third party I have been told this is not to happen and that all the funds were going to be maintained by the school/school district. Just wanted to get everybodys thoughts on this, as it does not seem like a good seperation of duties to me.
