To Retire or Disband your troop please complete these steps, preferably in this order. If you can do them before October 1st of the year you are retiring or disbanding, it will save you time and paperwork.
If your troop hasn't all graduated, be sure that you have communicated with your families and make sure everyone knows you are closing up the troop. If there are issues or you need help with that please reach out to the Service Unit Directors at sagefrontiergsctx@gmail.com
Make sure that all transactions have cleared and that there are no outstanding checks that haven't cleared.
End of Troop Funds: See Below for more information on the IRS and Girl Scout rules regarding how you are allowed to disburse your funds. After looking that over, if you still have questions please be sure to check with the SU Treasurer or Council before disbursing any final funds from your troop. This should be done with your Girl Scouts before the end of their last year registered.
If the troop still has any funds in the account when your Girl Scouts are finished and no longer meeting, or if you no longer have any Girl Scouts registered with your troop, the troop's final transaction should be a transfer of those remaining funds to the Service Unit.
If any girls are staying in Girl Scouts when the troop ends those funds will either:
Be distributed to their new troop/s equally divided between the girls remaining in Girl Scouts. Please communicate with the service unit about the Girl Scouts' plans so we can help you ensure that the funds get where they are supposed to.
Or if they are becoming Individually Registered Members, it will need to go into the SU account where it will be tracked separately as money earmarked specifically for those individual Girl Scouts. Please let the treasurer know that the funds are for an Individually Registered Member, and who the IRM is. The service unit then distributes it to the Girl Scout's parent for Girl Scout activities
Then the troop submits the request to close bank account form to council who will send the form to the signers of the account. If your account is up to date your Service Unit Treasurer will send it on to the bank from there. If it is not, you will need to send it to the treasurer at SFSUTreasurers@gmail.com so they can make sure everything is ready at the bank. Once that is done, you can ask the bank to fully close your troop bank account. If you would like the treasurer to come with you to help with any transfer of funds, please let us know.
After the account is closed an all financial transactions are finished then the troop files a final financial report
If the troop is doing this in this order and are still registered, and the troop hasn't been closed with council yet, troop leaders and treasurer should be able to file this report through VTK like normal and just indicate that the troop is not returning
If the troop adults are no longer registered with the troop for the current year or if the troop has already been closed with council, the option to use VTK for that troop will most likely not be available. At that point troops can use the retired troop form:
Then finally the troop can submit the form to GSCTX to close their troop officially with council using this form and your troop will be listed as retired:
When a troop disbands, any unused Girl Scout money left in the account becomes the property of the council. Troop funds are not the property of any individual member. Before disbanding, ask your troop how they want to pay it forward. They may decide to donate any unused funds to the GSCTX Girl Campaign, to their service unit, to another troop, or to pay for Girl Scout activities. Activities can also include purchasing materials to support another organization through Take Action projects.
When the entire troop decides not to continue in Girl Scouts or when the youth members in a troop have reached the maximum age for Girl Scout troop participation (grade 12) and are graduating from high school, the troop should vote on an appropriate Girl Scout activity to use any remaining funds in the troop account.
Any expenditures not explicitly allowed, as listed in the Managing Girl Scout Funds section, are prohibited. For example, purchases that benefit an individual long-term, such as a camera, passport, souvenir, gift card, shopping trip, college preparation course, or college scholarship are not approved for the use of Girl Scout funds.
Troop funds cannot be donated to outside organizations. If a troop wishes to support an outside organization, please see the Working with Sponsors and Other Organizations section on the GSCTX Website for more information on collaborating with other organizations.
Ideas for appropriate use of funds include:
final troop trip
donation to the GSCTX Girl Campaign
donation to the service unit
funding a community service project
Once troop funds have been used, the troop treasurer is responsible for completing the steps for closing the account and retiring the troop. If there is no current treasurer, the troop leader should complete them.