Open Forum

Your advice and collective wisdom is urgently needed.

I have just moved to a school that funnels all of the play funds into two ASB accounts: one for the fall play and one for the spring play.  The only problem is that, unless I can afford to pay for everything out of pocket and hope to get reimbursed, every single purchase, for every prop/costume piece needs to go through a student vote with tons of paperwork.  It takes three weeks for every stack of forms turned in.

Do any of you have to go through this process?  How do you handle the paperwork and time delay?  It is killing me!  

Have any of you negotiated a different way to do this?  If so, can you let me know what the options are so I can approach my administration with practical solutions?

Any and all help would be sooooo appreciated.

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Tisha Donnelly
Vallejo CA
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By CA law, funds do have to have student approval but our district handles it differently ... although it is still a burden in the sense that it is time consuming.  The ASB account at our school is an umbrella account for all of the clubs but it is the club itself that gets the say so on how money is spent.  
I have to turn in a Request for a Purchase Order (as we are only supposed to do business with vendors that take purchase orders).  That request also needs to be signed by the treasurer of the club as the rep for the students in the club.  They have the right to ask questions and, of course, not sign if they really didn't want to spend the money. It's never happened to me.  Then the request also needs to be signed by the teacher in charge of Student Activities and the admin who is also in charge of Student Activities.  Again, they have the right to question, but never have ... everything I order is clearly for the club or a production.  It generally takes 5-7 work days for the paperwork to make the rounds and for the head of Student Accounts to type and FAX the PO to the vendor. It does take some pre-planning but it doesn't require an entire club or student council vote. Because the district has accounts at Home Depot and Lowes, I can have open PO's for those vendors but everything else needs to be itemized on the PO request (3 gels in this color, 2 plastic sheriff's badges, etc.)
At the end of the year, we are required to turn in a budget to the Student Activities directors for the following year with our best guesstimates of money coming in and money going out. The club does have to approve that budget before it is turned in.  If I wanted to purchase something not covered in the budget, or spend more on something than I had guessed, I would need to go to the club for a vote and turn in the minutes of that meeting. That has very rarely happened as budgeting is general Income from Play tickets, funds spent on the play, etc.

If you email me at dixonh@lushd.net with an address, I would be happy to to send you all of the forms and a copy of the Student Accounts policies, etc for you to look at and take to your Student Accounts Clerk or someone in the district.

helen

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Helen Dixon
Oakley CA
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We have a similar set up, with all check requests and purchase orders going through the weekly ASB approval meeting. It is very frustrating at times. One way our ASB helps us out is by having a booklet of corporate cards from frequent retailers (Costco, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Michael's, etc). Find out if your ASB clerk has those, and see what it takes to get access- you still have to make the payments from your accounts, but at least you can get the materials on hand faster.

The other thing we do is get open purchase orders for a few vendors for the school year. Our costumer and local hardware store get new POs every year (that we have to submit usually prior to the first day of school for early approval).

Finally, though I have not tried it yet, I would see if you can get approval for a pre-paid credit card with a specific limit. Obviously you'd hang on to receipts for documentation. I spoke with my ASB clerk and she said nobody had ever tried it, but she couldn't see why it wouldn't work.

I still have to buy lots of stuff on my own credit card and get it reimbursed- much to my wife's chagrin. 

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Bret Cherland
Hemet CA
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