PP, are you also the OP? Take Carderock Springs foundation. That school has a PTA non profit organization. The PTA has receipts in the neighborhood of $200K for years available for viewing and net assets in neighborhood of $60K, which is high for ES PTAs. Then they have the foundation. Foundation had net assets of $252K in 2008, then 2009 return shows net assets at $129K, 2010 shows net assets at $180K, 2011 shows net assets at $157K. 2012 can't be viewed yet, but would be interesting to see net assets figure. Somerset's Foundation net assets-2008 $104K, 2009 $109K, 2010 $92K, 2011 $116K.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a number of schools with these foundations in Montgomery County and personally I would not want to have one. It is twice the amount of administration (on top of non profit PTA). If you view the information return filings for these organizations, you'll see that some of them have a lot of money but then they fundraise for more and then never spend into the corpus. Given that these are public schools and therefore do not have building funds or scholarship funds, this seems unnecessary.

Can you give me an example? What school does this?

Pull the 990s, they are publicly available.

Yes, I understand the 990s are available. But I don't know which schools supposedly do this, and PP says she knows, so I'm hoping PP will identify the schools she knows about. The only other alternative is for me to pull 990s for every school-related organization in Montgomery County, hoping to find examples of what PP is claiming.

pp was giving an opinion. What is the claim you are trying to refute? In general, there are lots of non profits that accumulate wealth. It is not unusual.

I'm not trying to refute anything. I'm just asking for an example or two of what PP is saying. Here is what she wrote: "I've seen a number of schools with these foundations in Montgomery County .... If you view the information return filings for these organizations, you'll see that some of them have a lot of money but then they fundraise for more and then never spend into the corpus. " So, name me a school or a parent organization in MoCo that has a lot of banked money but not much spending. That's all I'm asking. PP seems to be saying she's familiar with several, so please just point me to one or two.

Does this really have to be so hard?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a number of schools with these foundations in Montgomery County and personally I would not want to have one. It is twice the amount of administration (on top of non profit PTA). If you view the information return filings for these organizations, you'll see that some of them have a lot of money but then they fundraise for more and then never spend into the corpus. Given that these are public schools and therefore do not have building funds or scholarship funds, this seems unnecessary.

Can you give me an example? What school does this?

Pull the 990s, they are publicly available.

Yes, I understand the 990s are available. But I don't know which schools supposedly do this, and PP says she knows, so I'm hoping PP will identify the schools she knows about. The only other alternative is for me to pull 990s for every school-related organization in Montgomery County, hoping to find examples of what PP is claiming.

pp was giving an opinion. What is the claim you are trying to refute? In general, there are lots of non profits that accumulate wealth. It is not unusual.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a number of schools with these foundations in Montgomery County and personally I would not want to have one. It is twice the amount of administration (on top of non profit PTA). If you view the information return filings for these organizations, you'll see that some of them have a lot of money but then they fundraise for more and then never spend into the corpus. Given that these are public schools and therefore do not have building funds or scholarship funds, this seems unnecessary.

Can you give me an example? What school does this?

Pull the 990s, they are publicly available.

Yes, I understand the 990s are available. But I don't know which schools supposedly do this, and PP says she knows, so I'm hoping PP will identify the schools she knows about. The only other alternative is for me to pull 990s for every school-related organization in Montgomery County, hoping to find examples of what PP is claiming.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a number of schools with these foundations in Montgomery County and personally I would not want to have one. It is twice the amount of administration (on top of non profit PTA). If you view the information return filings for these organizations, you'll see that some of them have a lot of money but then they fundraise for more and then never spend into the corpus. Given that these are public schools and therefore do not have building funds or scholarship funds, this seems unnecessary.

Can you give me an example? What school does this?

Pull the 990s, they are publicly available.

Oh and these are NOT schools, they are separately incorporated entities.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a number of schools with these foundations in Montgomery County and personally I would not want to have one. It is twice the amount of administration (on top of non profit PTA). If you view the information return filings for these organizations, you'll see that some of them have a lot of money but then they fundraise for more and then never spend into the corpus. Given that these are public schools and therefore do not have building funds or scholarship funds, this seems unnecessary.

Can you give me an example? What school does this?

Pull the 990s, they are publicly available.

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a number of schools with these foundations in Montgomery County and personally I would not want to have one. It is twice the amount of administration (on top of non profit PTA). If you view the information return filings for these organizations, you'll see that some of them have a lot of money but then they fundraise for more and then never spend into the corpus. Given that these are public schools and therefore do not have building funds or scholarship funds, this seems unnecessary.

Can you give me an example? What school does this?

I've seen a number of schools with these foundations in Montgomery County and personally I would not want to have one. It is twice the amount of administration (on top of non profit PTA). If you view the information return filings for these organizations, you'll see that some of them have a lot of money but then they fundraise for more and then never spend into the corpus. Given that these are public schools and therefore do not have building funds or scholarship funds, this seems unnecessary.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not? Makes sense if an extra teacher is what is truly needed.

Because we have a county-wide school system and not a private one. Resources are supposed to be allocated evenly county-wide.

OP, the affluent schools have these non-profits. Other schools do not.

Not completely true. I believe Wheaton HS has one and it has one of the highest FARMS rate.

Anonymous wrote:Why not? Makes sense if an extra teacher is what is truly needed.

Because we have a county-wide school system and not a private one. Resources are supposed to be allocated evenly county-wide.

OP, the affluent schools have these non-profits. Other schools do not.

Why not? Makes sense if an extra teacher is what is truly needed.

I'm 20:47. I believe that MCPS limits what can be done (e.g., you can't raise $$ to hire an additional teacher).

Many of them do. It allows the schools to raise tax deductible money for things that aren't covered by the county. At our school it's been used for smart boards, computers, teacher professional development and some capital projects.

Herbert Hoover Middle School in Potomac has one.

We are moving and I found it very interesting that Carderock Springs ES has a non-profit foundation (Carderock Springs Elementary School Educational Foundation). Do any other schools in MoCo have this?

Thanks!