Membership Service Fees

What are Membership Service Fees?

Membership service fees are collected by a PTA local unit and must include Washington State PTA’s membership service fee and the National PTA’s affiliation fee (sent to the Washington State PTA and forwarded by WSPTA to National PTA). If the local unit belongs to a council, it must also remit a separate council service fee directly to the council.

When are Membership Service Fees Remitted to the State PTA Office?

The service fee remittance due dates are October 25, January 25, and May 25. These are the only times your PTA is required to pay state and national service fees for members, although your unit may choose to submit service fees more often if you’d like. All local units--both PTAs in a council and non-council units, send membership service fees to the State PTA office.

Your unit will receive a weekly email remittance form, but does not need to pay these service fees weekly. The reason the weekly email remittance form is provided that it gives timely information about member registrations in smaller groupings that should be easier to reconcile, and provides units options of when to pay, as follows: 

• Some units find it useful to pay membership dues each week. They appreciate that the weekly remittance form provides a concise list of members they have just recently entered making it easier to reconcile while it is fresh in their mind, and is documentation of the payment amount.

• Some units prefer to pay the dues once a month when they get together with the co-signer to pay bills. They may use the weekly remittance form to reconcile their entry while it is fresh (and in smaller volume than if done all at once).

•  Some units will choose to wait to pay dues until shortly before October 25th. They may use the weekly remittance form for reconciliation as mentioned above, or they may use the new statement described below.

The member web site now includes a new report called “Statement of Fees Due” which lists enrolled members for whom payment has not yet been received and recorded in the WSPTA membership database. Local units may use this report instead of the remittance forms as documentation supporting dues payment, and use the remittance form for weekly reconciliation of entry, or not at all.

At the end of each fiscal year, memberships entered online must balance with memberships paid by the local unit. If they don’t reconcile, the local unit will be billed for the balance. Be aware, however, that over payments cannot be refunded once fees have been forwarded to NPTA, so be very careful that the fees are paid correctly.