Financial Observations from the PTA

I’ve been volunteering as the PTA Treasurer at my daughter’s school this year, which I’ve found to be both enjoyable and a bit of a pain.  I like being involved and getting to know a lot of the parents at the school but I’ve also found it to be quite a bit of work, on top of all the other things I have going on in my life.

Most of the time the job consists of adding up checks and making trips to the bank to deposit them.  Sometimes it’s not just checks though.  The PTA also periodically sells treats at recess.  This usually yields about $250 in loose change that I have to count, roll and then deposit.  We also just completed a “coin drive” that generated $700 in loose change.  It took two trips from the car to the bank to get it all on to the counter due to the sheer weight and awkwardness of it.  I’ve never handled that much change in my life!

The other aspect of the job that I don’t really enjoy is trying to collect funds from parents who write us bad checks.  It’s happened a few times and usually the parents bring us the money and apologize profusely for the mistake.  Unfortunately it doesn’t always go that smoothly.  My most recent experience has me trying to collect about $75 from a parent that used to be on the PTA board.  I’ve sent letters, tried to call and sent emails with no response.  I can only assume that she is having money issues and has decided that it’s easier to steal $75 from the kids at our school than to pay it back.  Since she was previously involved with the PTA, she knows exactly who she’s hurting by not paying us.  Needless to say, it’s not quite what I expected to be dealing with when I agreed to be treasurer.

As I’ve been dealing with this latest bit of drama, I’ve found myself wondering how many families in the school are struggling.  With the economy in the shape that it is, I know there are lots of people suffering financially.  My daughter’s school now has nearly 50% of the kids receiving free or reduced lunch so it’s clear that there is a lot of financial struggling happening around us.  The economy definitely has a lot of people down!  I’m actually surprised that we haven’t had more trouble with NSF checks and non-payment with this level of financial difficulty in our area.

All that being said, I have found the job to be rewarding too.  Since we have been on autopilot with our finances for years now, this has given me something else to work on.  I have to keep track of all the income and expenses, track the bank transactions, pay bills and handle various other administrative duties like renewing registrations with the state etc..  I’m not sure I’ll be doing it again next year, but it has been an overall positive experience and it makes me feel like I’m giving something back and helping to enrich my daughter’s elementary school experience.