CO and Pack Funds

[Thomas54]

 

 

The PTA is delusional.

 

They are responsible for your unit whether or not you use their EIN. Cub Pack XXX does not exist by itself. It is a youth group of the Charter organization. BSA only provides the program material. You default on a check and the PTA is on the hook.

 

This has more to do with lawyers trying to recommend the lowest avenue of risk for their client. Of course not allowing a Pack to use their tax ID number is a lower risk. Eliminate kids and have the parents put up a 1,000 bond would be a lawyer's low risk advice. PTA perhaps is not being all that friendly to your scouting program.

 

If you buy a car with troop funds the Charter organization will be responsible not BSA. Now the PTA will come after you but they are still financially liable for the unit's finances.

 

 

 

 

[kmorley971]

so any experience/recommendations trying to explain the CO role without freaking them out in terms of the perspective they have on liability? What is unsettling in that this coming from State level PTA.

[shortridge]

Call your DE immediately and ask for immediate guidance and a meeting. This is part of what he or she gets paid to do. Without the PTA chartering your pack, your pack might not exist. And it doesn't sound like the PTA wants to charter your pack (or maybe it just doesn't understand what its role is). That has a direct impact on your DE's bottom line.

[ScoutNut]

I agree - give your council a call ASAP. Talk to your DE. Your DE, if they do not fully understand the tax, liability, issues will know who in the council does.

 

Your DE needs to have a meeting with your school PTA President to explain these issues, and to explain their role as a CO.

 

Warning - From what I understand, the National PTA organization is actively discouraging it's members from chartering Scout units. With these issues being brought up there is the distinct possibility that your Pack will need to find a new CO. You should be prepared.

 

Again, we here on this forum can not give you information specific to YOUR area. You really must contact your District Executive at your Council Service Center.

[Thomas54]

 

 

It will be tough for you to set up a bank account without the tax ID number. Even with it we had to shop around banks willing to set up a checking account. Finally a Bank of America branch manager came through.

 

Girl scouts have a different set up but each troop is required to establish a bank account.

 

I would proceed with caution. No need to get everyone in the CO all upset. Be patient stay in all cash for awhile and maybe a private discussion with the DE and the school's PTA president. Later arrange for a meeting with bank manager and the PTA head. You may want to consider having the PTA head sign off on all checks. Blunt force with this one is not something I would advise.

 

Explain how the alternative is to have a bundle of cash around or worse have the funds run through a personal checking account.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Oak Tree]

We had a similar question arise. For auditability purposes, our CO thinks they should be able to account for all the money that goes through them. The fact is, though, that they don't have an easy way to show what happened to the money that they gave to the pack. Yes, they can come ask the pack treasurer, but they could not easily just pull up the records for the pack the way that they can pull up all of the expenditures/receipts for all of the other units of the church (e.g., choir, women's group). And yes, we could run all money through the CO the same way that the other groups do, but the CO doesn't really want to deal with all of the incoming/outgoing funds associated with running the pack (and I can't say that I blame them for this).

 

I guess we can make the argument that we do have audit-ability - but I can also see how that would not really be sufficient from their perspective. The problem really arises when donations are made to the pack through the CO. Other than that, I think they're happy to have us run "off-the-books" - and they wouldn't need to worry about the audit requirements. Yes, I know, they're still just as responsible, but it doesn't leap out as a red flag when they look at their finances.

 

Hence, they don't really want us to run donations through them. I guess we can just take the donations directly.

[ScoutNut]

>>"I guess we can just take the donations directly."

[NJCubScouter]

ScoutNut said what I was going to say about the National PTA discouraging local PTA's from being CO's. This is not a new thing. I remember reading about it approximately 10 years ago, and it could go back further than that. The National PTA policy is that local PTA's take on too much liability by "owning" a unit that is running a program prescribed by another organization (the BSA.) Some in this forum have speculated that there may be another issue or two behind that policy, and they're not necessarily wrong, but we will leave that to "Issues & Politics." So I am surprised that the reaction from the state PTA to the local PTA wasn't "no use of the EIN, and by the way, you should really drop the charter."

 

Interestingly, the pack my son was in was chartered to his school's Parent-Teacher Organization -- PTO, not PTA. Some people wonder what difference that one little letter makes. The answer, to my knowledge, is that with a PTO there is no national organization, meaning that (among other things) there is no national group charging dues to the local groups (as the National PTA does to local PTA's) and there is no national organization issuing recommendations like, "don't charter a BSA unit."

 

Bottom line here is, you would probably be better off with a new CO, and from the sound of things it is unlikely that the local PTA will object to you taking your money (which presumably is STILL in an individual leader's checking account, not a good idea), equipment (if any) and unit number (they own that too) down the street to your local American Legion, Elks, religious institution, or whoever may be interested. Your District Exec can probably help you there.

[John-in-KC]

I offer the same advice as NJCubScouter and ScoutNut.

 

Ask your DE to meet with you, the COR, and the IH at a very early date. This should properly be resolved in short order.

[FScouter]

It would be helpful if the PTA would read the charter agreement they signed. Obviously they think the pack is some outside group that just wants to use the school multipurpose room.

[Oak Tree]

>>"I guess we can just take the donations directly."