AIBU to be the only person concerned that the PTA treasurer seems to have gone missing....

[PTAmissing]

With all the PTA money?

She's been treasurer for years, no children at the school anymore.

She usually attends roughly 1 of every 4 meetings. She hasn't been to one for 6 months. She won't answer the phone or the door, doesn't reply to emails or texts. Chair went to her house and she didn't answer the door although it looked like she was in. We have no access to the money or accounts and the school is lending us money to get back off her at some indeterminate time in the future.

We have the school fate soon and she has all the info on stalls etc not to mention the money we need to buy things! She owes one of the parents about £50 for things they bought from their company for the PTA xmas fate.

Nobody else seems concerned! I really got angry about it at the last meeting and said this is ridiculous, we have no idea how much is in the account, we can't get hold of her, we have no working float. Apparently she has family drama at the moment and thats why she's unavailable but she still wants to be treasurer. I raised the possibility that there could be something dodgy going on and got shut down by the chair who said its not possible as there are two signatories on the account (because she couldn't just forge a signature???)

AIBU to think they should be taking this a bit more seriously given there is over £7000 (at the last count) of money that has been donated by the parents fgs, not to just sit in an account that nobody can get into?!

This is what happens when too many tasks are piled onto one person, instead of sharing them out fairly.

It's basically putting all your eggs in one baskets. Not a good idea.

I would be willing to bet that this is a small school where the governors, the PTA committee and the regular pick-up mothers have very large overlaps, and all know each other. Where there is no clear separation of people's roles as governors, PTA members, staff and parents, and the "community" sees the whole thing as one indivisible whole. The PTA being able to borrow money from the school is completely insane: it shows a complete breakdown in governance.

Primary school governance is all too commonly a claque around the head, with a lot of talk about "loyalty" and "support", not "challenge" and "being a critical friend".

Yes no doubt people are given roles purely because they're popular and not whether they are up to the task'.
A small core of people keep getting given the same jobs, instead of casting the net wider.

Small school mentality.

Sometimes it's the same people who do everything on the PTA because they're the only fuckers who volunteer and nothing would get done if they didn't. The school needn't be particularly small for that situation to arise.
Obviously you still need checks and balances but that's why some PTAs look "cliquey"

My guess is if money is missing, it never went in to the bank account in the first place. The other signatory needs to find what bank transactions have been made in the last 12 months as a starting point. They also need to see if the PTA insurance has been paid. I can understand how the Chair and Head must feel like this is all falling down around them, but they must step up now. The bank statements will show if there is a genuine cause for concern and give something concrete to work on. For all that has happened, there are still a lot of assumptions being made about what has been going on. Hard evidence is required of any wrongdoing.

Sometimes it's the same people who do everything on the PTA because they're the only fuckers who volunteer and nothing would get done if they didn't

Then nothing gets done. The PTA doesn't exist for professional martyrs to prove their martyrdom, and if it folds, the parent body have voted with their apathy.

Unlucky83 is correct, you should be insured, but only if there is sufficient evidence of amounts raised etc. If the treasurer has just picked up the money and kept it and there are no other records, then you have no proof of the amount of PTA money missing and the insurance company won't pay out.

Unlucky83 is correct, you should be insured

By whom?

No bolograph the PTA exists to raise funds for the school, and those that do it aren't necessarily professional martyrs, just people who want to get things done. I'm just explaining why it tends to be the same faces all the time.

By the PTA insurance providing that it is up to date. There is a clause insuring against misappropriation of funds on PTA UK insurance. However if it hasn't been paid then they are stuffed. They are also stuffed if they can't provide evidence of the amount missing.

moreshitandnofuckingredemption

I totally agree with you. I'm chair of a PTA and can I get volunteers to join us? Parents don't volunteer, and then quite a few get arsy when events have had to be cancelled due to lack of help.

I work full time and appreciate not everyone can spare time, but in a school with nearly 700 pupils, I refuse to believe that all of those parents can't spare the time. Many just cba and assume someone else will do it.

Yes, the someone elses who have been stepping up for years.

So I dont believe that in this situation, it's the result of the same people in place for years. It's everything to do with the individuals and their circumstances. If you have proper procedures in place and the right checks and balances, it doesn't matter if the same people volunteer all the time.

The treasurer in this situation needs to give up all the information, and the chair, HT and remaining committee need to step up and put robust reporting, procedures, etc in place to avoid anything like this happening in future, even if no wrong doing is found or proven this time.

No bolograph the PTA exists to raise funds for the school

Right.

I suggested when I had children in a primary school that a reasonable strategy would be to ask the middle-class parents with big cars to kick in fifty quid, and the school could rapidly raise the money for some project (I forget which).

Instead, there was a bake sale in which cakes were sold for less than the cost of the ingredients, thus meaning that the PTA raised less money than the parents paid out. This was, apparently, "fairer" and "more inclusive".

The purpose wasn't raising money. It was providing an opportunity for a small clique of mothers to meet, while ineffectually raising small amounts of money and whining about how no-one else would get involved.

Bake sales which sell cakes for less than the price of the ingredients aren't "raising money for the school", they're a rather ineffectual "oh look, aren't we caring" event.

I think the Chair is doing an appalling job on this PTA. The treasurer has absconded with the cash and the Chair wants to have another meeting.

Chair needs to contact the Head and the Governors and the police. What's another meeting going to achieve with the OP there or not?

You're well out of this OP!

What Bolograph said, absolutely. Our PTA is like that. They seem to run it as a social club rather than as a profit making organisation. Even the HT said recently, in all seriousness, that he saw its function primarily as a way of parents to socialise, and the money making side was secondary . No wonder some parents feel excluded if they aren't part of that set.

Re volunteering though, it's how you ask, isn't it? If you want someone to do something, you need to ask them directly, not rely on them turning up to a meeting and offering to run a stall.

How would you suggest they go about deciding which middle class parents with big cars get asked for £50? Engine size?

*Bolograph Wed 25-May-16 09:01:49

I would be willing to bet that this is a small school where the governors, the PTA committee and the regular pick-up mothers have very large overlaps, and all know each other. Where there is no clear separation of people's roles as governors, PTA members, staff and parents, and the "community" sees the whole thing as one indivisible whole. The PTA being able to borrow money from the school is completely insane: it shows a complete breakdown in governance.*

Yes - I'm betting this is precisely the case here.

I don't think I would go to the meeting. I would send another email to the Chair explaining that every time you raised concerns no further action was taken and that you do not want to be involved any further in the situation.

It's easy: precisely as the secondary school does it. They send round a letter, asking for a monthly standing order for £10, £20, £50. Some people throw it away, others sign up. No pressure, just a polite request. We've given the school a grand over the past ten years, which is a hell of a lot of lemon drizzle cakes. No cash or cheques so the temptation to petty fraud is reduced.

For those that don't want to give so directly, there's also a "hundred club" or whatever it's called raffley-thing. Again, standing order, no cash.

The not-quite-PTA (it's a state school with complex governance) raises about twenty grand a year from these two initiatives alone. No hassle, no baking, no guilt-tripping, requires almost no effort on the part of the fund raisers.

Is it still "volunteering" if you've been strong-armed into it in the playground? Interesting to see a different viewpoint though, I'm a joiner-innerer and I'd sooner get some value myself from my contribution rather than just handing over some cash, seems a bit cold to me. But that sounds really selfish written down like that!
Anyway, am derailing now, could be a good subject for another thread though.
Hope you get sorted and the Fraud Squad can stand down!

Bolograph is that secondary or primary?

One other point - I have experience of a treasurer helping themselves to funds. The bank accounts had dual signatures - the treasurer just forged (badly) the chair's signature - when the main account was emptied, the bank 'helpfully' transferred money from the investment account to keep covering the fraudulent cheques. Dual signatures are not an iron-clad protection, the bank statements should be available to cross-reference with the accounts (at least once a year, by the independent examiner (auditor), if not more frequently).

is that secondary or primary

Secondary. What difference does it make? Secondary schools don't have PTAs which organise fetes and discos, but are a bloody sight more effective at raising money. There's no reason why a primary couldn't do precisely the the same thing (the secondary my children attend/ed is only 30% larger than the primary they went to).

Bolograph, what a brilliant idea.

It's easy: precisely as the secondary school does it. They send round a letter, asking for a monthly standing order for £10, £20, £50. Some people throw it away, others sign up.

I would imagine that some really parents would really welcome that as a means of contributing.
No everybody has time to bake cakes and help out on stalls.

No everybody has time to bake cakes and help out on stalls.

Why would I spend five pounds, my time and my electricity on baking a cake that's sold for less than five pounds? Wouldn't it make more sense to give the school five pounds? Any objection to that says the PTA isn't about raising money for the school.

Fair enough, that sounds like a good idea. I'm not a joiner or a baker but I'd be happy to hand over a little cash to keep the PTA running.