PTA issues

[Anonymous]

PTA is a registered nonprofit organization. Legally. No one should be using their personal account for anything to do with collecting money for it or its programming. Setting up a Venmo or other account may be time consuming but you don’t negate the process by making it personal.

PayPal and square work. Memberhub has a device the PTA can purchase to make transactions frictionless.

[Anonymous]

Also, there are tax consequences to using one's personal venmo or paypal account. Starting this year, they might receive a 1099 if there are $600 or more in transactions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Per MCCPTA guidelines. All accounts including bank and PayPal need to be consolidated every month. So the treasurer should be able to check on these transactions on regular basis.

Look. The point is that more than one person on the PTA should be able to see the exact amount of money coming in and going out. The PTA should be transparent, especially when it comes to finances.

You can also have a financial review committee, but since we are ES and not a lot complicated income and spending, like Booster clubs have budget for each clubs and sports, our CPA usually handles the review process. If OP is concerned, please ask the board for their detailed process. However, embezzlement does happen, I think 7 or 8 years ago one ES had embezzlement, all pta had to chip in to cover their debt. I was new to MCPS that time, I didn’t remember the details and how it was discovered. The law authority probably were involved.

Your pta has a cpa. Wow. We are just thankful when we have a few thousand for the year.

All PTA needs to file tax annually, only CPA certified for non profit can do this, i was told

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Per MCCPTA guidelines. All accounts including bank and PayPal need to be consolidated every month. So the treasurer should be able to check on these transactions on regular basis.

Look. The point is that more than one person on the PTA should be able to see the exact amount of money coming in and going out. The PTA should be transparent, especially when it comes to finances.

You can also have a financial review committee, but since we are ES and not a lot complicated income and spending, like Booster clubs have budget for each clubs and sports, our CPA usually handles the review process. If OP is concerned, please ask the board for their detailed process. However, embezzlement does happen, I think 7 or 8 years ago one ES had embezzlement, all pta had to chip in to cover their debt. I was new to MCPS that time, I didn’t remember the details and how it was discovered. The law authority probably were involved.

Your pta has a cpa. Wow. We are just thankful when we have a few thousand for the year.

All PTA needs to file tax annually, only CPA certified for non profit can do this, i was told

Definitely not true. Particularly for small PTAs without lots of complicated funding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Per MCCPTA guidelines. All accounts including bank and PayPal need to be consolidated every month. So the treasurer should be able to check on these transactions on regular basis.

Look. The point is that more than one person on the PTA should be able to see the exact amount of money coming in and going out. The PTA should be transparent, especially when it comes to finances.

You can also have a financial review committee, but since we are ES and not a lot complicated income and spending, like Booster clubs have budget for each clubs and sports, our CPA usually handles the review process. If OP is concerned, please ask the board for their detailed process. However, embezzlement does happen, I think 7 or 8 years ago one ES had embezzlement, all pta had to chip in to cover their debt. I was new to MCPS that time, I didn’t remember the details and how it was discovered. The law authority probably were involved.

Your pta has a cpa. Wow. We are just thankful when we have a few thousand for the year.

All PTA needs to file tax annually, only CPA certified for non profit can do this, i was told

Absolutely not. I filed ours. If you are over $50K you have to do a long form, so who ever told you that just didn't want to do it themselves, but otherwise you do the short form and it takes about 5 minutes for federal and another 5 minutes for state. None of it is very hard. We wouldn't have the money to pay a CPA so its a non-issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone heard of a PTA president using their own personal Venmo for donations? Sounds fishy...who is tracking where they are using their funds? Is this legal?

This is a violation of IRS rules for 501-c-3 organizations. Co-mingling of personal and non-profit funds is not allowed as it is impossible to account for the money appropriately. Please report this to MCCPTA. The county organization has an interest in ensuring its members operate with appropriate financial practices.

https://www.mccpta.org/treasurer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really appreciate the PTA volunteers who collect money because it's a pain and it opens you up to these kinds of unfounded allegations.

Unless you have a concrete reason to suspect something wrong I would give it a rest OP.
It's very normal and you will encounter it again and again.

It's not normal and it's illegal and PTAs are expected to act in ways that uphold the public trust. I was a PTSA treasurer and co-mingling PTSA funds with personal funds absolutely should not be done.

So no, don't give it a rest, OP. Thanks for asking.

A few years back, a PTA treasurer in MoCo co-mingled her personal funds and PTA funds. She spent PTA funds on vacations, personal meals, and more. She spent 8 months in prison. It took an enormous amount of time and resources to bring this person to justice, but MCCPTA did it - because it operates in the pubic trust.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone heard of a PTA president using their own personal Venmo for donations? Sounds fishy...who is tracking where they are using their funds? Is this legal?

This is a violation of IRS rules for 501-c-3 organizations. Co-mingling of personal and non-profit funds is not allowed as it is impossible to account for the money appropriately. Please report this to MCCPTA. The county organization has an interest in ensuring its members operate with appropriate financial practices.

https://www.mccpta.org/treasurer

Get a life! This is not co-mingling personal and non-profit funds. It is perfectly legal and all you have to do is to keep track of where the money is coming from and what it’s for. It’s no different than collecting cash then depositing it at a bank. I was auditor at our PTA.

Of course the trust can be abused, but the issue is likely that the PTA doesn’t have enough volunteers to run things smoothly.

The solution is to buy a membership management system like Totem, https://jointotem.com/, and a financial management software like PTAEZ. Everything costs about $500 per year. But if the entire PTA budget is only a couple of thousands it doesn’t make much sense.

The people criticizing this practice probably never volunteered their time and just like to complain from the sidelines. Even the tone is pathetic, like “report it to the parent organization” lol!. Lady, your attitude sucks! How about offering your help?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really appreciate the PTA volunteers who collect money because it's a pain and it opens you up to these kinds of unfounded allegations.

Unless you have a concrete reason to suspect something wrong I would give it a rest OP.
It's very normal and you will encounter it again and again.

It's not normal and it's illegal and PTAs are expected to act in ways that uphold the public trust. I was a PTSA treasurer and co-mingling PTSA funds with personal funds absolutely should not be done.

So no, don't give it a rest, OP. Thanks for asking.

A few years back, a PTA treasurer in MoCo co-mingled her personal funds and PTA funds. She spent PTA funds on vacations, personal meals, and more. She spent 8 months in prison. It took an enormous amount of time and resources to bring this person to justice, but MCCPTA did it - because it operates in the pubic trust.

It’s not normal when the PTA budget is $100k a year. It’s very normal when the budget is $1k a year.

Nothing illegal about it, unless the money is used for other purposes than intended. Not the best practice, but also not illegal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone heard of a PTA president using their own personal Venmo for donations? Sounds fishy...who is tracking where they are using their funds? Is this legal?

This is a violation of IRS rules for 501-c-3 organizations. Co-mingling of personal and non-profit funds is not allowed as it is impossible to account for the money appropriately. Please report this to MCCPTA. The county organization has an interest in ensuring its members operate with appropriate financial practices.

https://www.mccpta.org/treasurer

Get a life! This is not co-mingling personal and non-profit funds. It is perfectly legal and all you have to do is to keep track of where the money is coming from and what it’s for. It’s no different than collecting cash then depositing it at a bank. I was auditor at our PTA.

Of course the trust can be abused, but the issue is likely that the PTA doesn’t have enough volunteers to run things smoothly.

The solution is to buy a membership management system like Totem, https://jointotem.com/, and a financial management software like PTAEZ. Everything costs about $500 per year. But if the entire PTA budget is only a couple of thousands it doesn’t make much sense.

The people criticizing this practice probably never volunteered their time and just like to complain from the sidelines. Even the tone is pathetic, like “report it to the parent organization” lol!. Lady, your attitude sucks! How about offering your help?

There is zero reason or excuse to use your personal accounts as a PTA board member. You don't seem to get how it works. We have a few thousand budget and we made it work and never ever too money directly. We would just use a spreadsheet as we couldn't afford a software program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone heard of a PTA president using their own personal Venmo for donations? Sounds fishy...who is tracking where they are using their funds? Is this legal?

This is a violation of IRS rules for 501-c-3 organizations. Co-mingling of personal and non-profit funds is not allowed as it is impossible to account for the money appropriately. Please report this to MCCPTA. The county organization has an interest in ensuring its members operate with appropriate financial practices.

https://www.mccpta.org/treasurer

Get a life! This is not co-mingling personal and non-profit funds. It is perfectly legal and all you have to do is to keep track of where the money is coming from and what it’s for. It’s no different than collecting cash then depositing it at a bank. I was auditor at our PTA.

Of course the trust can be abused, but the issue is likely that the PTA doesn’t have enough volunteers to run things smoothly.

The solution is to buy a membership management system like Totem, https://jointotem.com/, and a financial management software like PTAEZ. Everything costs about $500 per year. But if the entire PTA budget is only a couple of thousands it doesn’t make much sense.

The people criticizing this practice probably never volunteered their time and just like to complain from the sidelines. Even the tone is pathetic, like “report it to the parent organization” lol!. Lady, your attitude sucks! How about offering your help?

There is zero reason or excuse to use your personal accounts as a PTA board member. You don't seem to get how it works. We have a few thousand budget and we made it work and never ever too money directly. We would just use a spreadsheet as we couldn't afford a software program.

It sounds like you never volunteered for your PTA, I was actually very involved and know how it works. Nobody is going to say, send me school donations to my personal Venmo. The option is check, cash, credit card, and square (nobody is using it now). Occasionally someone will say, can I just Venmo the money? For convenience people will say, ok, here’s my Venmo I’ll transfer it to the school. I never took money, but I did give a donation to an officer that way. Is it possible she stole the money? Yes, but it could be the same with giving cash, it could not have been deposited.

If you’re not comfortable with Venmo, just say you prefer to pay in another way. If it’s a transaction between the president and another person, just stay out of it and give them the benefit of the doubt that they worked out an arrangement out of convenience and it’s none of your concern. Most people in the PTA volunteer because they care. To suggest reporting it as a crime is tacky and tasteless to say the least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really appreciate the PTA volunteers who collect money because it's a pain and it opens you up to these kinds of unfounded allegations.

Unless you have a concrete reason to suspect something wrong I would give it a rest OP.
It's very normal and you will encounter it again and again.

It's not normal and it's illegal and PTAs are expected to act in ways that uphold the public trust. I was a PTSA treasurer and co-mingling PTSA funds with personal funds absolutely should not be done.

So no, don't give it a rest, OP. Thanks for asking.

A few years back, a PTA treasurer in MoCo co-mingled her personal funds and PTA funds. She spent PTA funds on vacations, personal meals, and more. She spent 8 months in prison. It took an enormous amount of time and resources to bring this person to justice, but MCCPTA did it - because it operates in the pubic trust.

It’s not normal when the PTA budget is $100k a year. It’s very normal when the budget is $1k a year.

Nothing illegal about it, unless the money is used for other purposes than intended. Not the best practice, but also not illegal.

It's absolutely not normal on a $1K budget. We've had that budget. What happened was some of us paid for things out of our own money but all money was done via appropriate channels. You don't seem to get how it works. It is illegal and appropriate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone heard of a PTA president using their own personal Venmo for donations? Sounds fishy...who is tracking where they are using their funds? Is this legal?

This is a violation of IRS rules for 501-c-3 organizations. Co-mingling of personal and non-profit funds is not allowed as it is impossible to account for the money appropriately. Please report this to MCCPTA. The county organization has an interest in ensuring its members operate with appropriate financial practices.

https://www.mccpta.org/treasurer

Get a life! This is not co-mingling personal and non-profit funds. It is perfectly legal and all you have to do is to keep track of where the money is coming from and what it’s for. It’s no different than collecting cash then depositing it at a bank. I was auditor at our PTA.

Of course the trust can be abused, but the issue is likely that the PTA doesn’t have enough volunteers to run things smoothly.

The solution is to buy a membership management system like Totem, https://jointotem.com/, and a financial management software like PTAEZ. Everything costs about $500 per year. But if the entire PTA budget is only a couple of thousands it doesn’t make much sense.

The people criticizing this practice probably never volunteered their time and just like to complain from the sidelines. Even the tone is pathetic, like “report it to the parent organization” lol!. Lady, your attitude sucks! How about offering your help?

There is zero reason or excuse to use your personal accounts as a PTA board member. You don't seem to get how it works. We have a few thousand budget and we made it work and never ever too money directly. We would just use a spreadsheet as we couldn't afford a software program.

It sounds like you never volunteered for your PTA, I was actually very involved and know how it works. Nobody is going to say, send me school donations to my personal Venmo. The option is check, cash, credit card, and square (nobody is using it now). Occasionally someone will say, can I just Venmo the money? For convenience people will say, ok, here’s my Venmo I’ll transfer it to the school. I never took money, but I did give a donation to an officer that way. Is it possible she stole the money? Yes, but it could be the same with giving cash, it could not have been deposited.

If you’re not comfortable with Venmo, just say you prefer to pay in another way. If it’s a transaction between the president and another person, just stay out of it and give them the benefit of the doubt that they worked out an arrangement out of convenience and it’s none of your concern. Most people in the PTA volunteer because they care. To suggest reporting it as a crime is tacky and tasteless to say the least.

Actually I have far more experience than you and as that person I never accepted venmo. I gave them the school options, cash or check but we discouraged cash heavily. We use square and it's worked well. It has lots of payment options. It absolutely is my concern as when there isn't enough money in ours, guess who pays for things or has to scramble for donations? ME

Lots of options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone heard of a PTA president using their own personal Venmo for donations? Sounds fishy...who is tracking where they are using their funds? Is this legal?

This is a violation of IRS rules for 501-c-3 organizations. Co-mingling of personal and non-profit funds is not allowed as it is impossible to account for the money appropriately. Please report this to MCCPTA. The county organization has an interest in ensuring its members operate with appropriate financial practices.

https://www.mccpta.org/treasurer

Get a life! This is not co-mingling personal and non-profit funds. It is perfectly legal and all you have to do is to keep track of where the money is coming from and what it’s for. It’s no different than collecting cash then depositing it at a bank. I was auditor at our PTA.

Of course the trust can be abused, but the issue is likely that the PTA doesn’t have enough volunteers to run things smoothly.

The solution is to buy a membership management system like Totem, https://jointotem.com/, and a financial management software like PTAEZ. Everything costs about $500 per year. But if the entire PTA budget is only a couple of thousands it doesn’t make much sense.

The people criticizing this practice probably never volunteered their time and just like to complain from the sidelines. Even the tone is pathetic, like “report it to the parent organization” lol!. Lady, your attitude sucks! How about offering your help?

There is zero reason or excuse to use your personal accounts as a PTA board member. You don't seem to get how it works. We have a few thousand budget and we made it work and never ever too money directly. We would just use a spreadsheet as we couldn't afford a software program.

It sounds like you never volunteered for your PTA, I was actually very involved and know how it works. Nobody is going to say, send me school donations to my personal Venmo. The option is check, cash, credit card, and square (nobody is using it now). Occasionally someone will say, can I just Venmo the money? For convenience people will say, ok, here’s my Venmo I’ll transfer it to the school. I never took money, but I did give a donation to an officer that way. Is it possible she stole the money? Yes, but it could be the same with giving cash, it could not have been deposited.

If you’re not comfortable with Venmo, just say you prefer to pay in another way. If it’s a transaction between the president and another person, just stay out of it and give them the benefit of the doubt that they worked out an arrangement out of convenience and it’s none of your concern. Most people in the PTA volunteer because they care. To suggest reporting it as a crime is tacky and tasteless to say the least.

Actually I have far more experience than you and as that person I never accepted venmo. I gave them the school options, cash or check but we discouraged cash heavily. We use square and it's worked well. It has lots of payment options. It absolutely is my concern as when there isn't enough money in ours, guess who pays for things or has to scramble for donations? ME

Lots of options.

You have no idea whether you have far more experience than PP because this is an anonymous message board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, there are tax consequences to using one's personal venmo or paypal account. Starting this year, they might receive a 1099 if there are $600 or more in transactions.

This is the part that may cause trouble when he/she file tax.