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?!

So no actual bank account statement!

As a lawyer, I'd say don't resign. The very thing you are in that position for is to ensure proper management of the school. By resigning you fail in the most fundamental duty you have and you may not avoid liability should things go Pete Tong.
You have to tell the head and the other PTA members that as awkward as it is for you to speak up, you understand your legal duty to be to the school first and foremost and that you are therefore obliged to raise matters of concern. You do not do it out of criticism or to imply criticism of anyone but merely because it is your function as a member to ensure the highest standards of scrutiny and openness. You will be happy to discover that there is no reason to be concerned, but you have no option but to report your concerns in order that they might be allayed.

I worked for a financial institution which is why I was nominated for Treasurer but that isn't a reason to consider nothing untoward is going on.

Can you email the Chair (cc the Head) confirming your discussion of last week and expressing your concerns again? There may be nothing 'dodgy' going on but if the Treasurer is struggling to keep on top of things then someone needs to step in and take over.

I don't think not seeing a bank account statement is an issue - I have never seen ours and I've been on the committee for years.

The financial statement is more complex than the bank account balance - it's also cash in hand for things like floats, cheques written and not cashed etc etc. BUT a good Treasurer should ensure that accounts are audited annually and part of that is a cross check with the bank statements.

The Committee needs to deal with this and not let the situation continue, it's a very inefficient way to run things.

Thanks huppo, I'm going to email chair this morning so I've got a paper trail of concern

I had a (very very ex) friend who LOVED the drama she would cause...there would be a minor family hiccup (literally like someone having D&V for the weekend) and she would shut herself off from everyone for an indeterminate amount of time - "to heal"...

She wouldn't turn up for work - uncontactable; she wouldn't return anyone's phonecalls, either official or "best friends"....she would have everyone running around trying to contact her, going to the house, leaving care packages on the doorstep so she didn't have to interact with people during her "healing"time...

She would then suddenly, slowly reappear, generally with a new job....post huge long facebook posts about "finding out who her true friends are through horrible times"...and never mention it again....

She just completely fed off the drama. Most of the drama was self created or even imaginary - she shut down for a week because someone had done something unexpected on a motorbike while she was driving...

It could all be ok and she's wrapped up in family problems and this isn't a priority for her.
HOWEVER it is quite possible things aren't ok.
I have had (work related) experiences where a)people are just a bit lax and then if things change in their private life it all goes pear shaped records are missing or incomplete
b) people have been used to borrowing sums of money from funds perhaps innocently initially it starts off small and they get paid back but as time goes on or thdy get a big bill or a change in personal circumstances and the amounts get bigger or more frequent and the repayments get missed.

Usually this is at more risk of happening where you get one person in charge of handling money, they don't welcome help or share work, missing meetings and avoiding people is s big red flag too, as is the auditing ( the whole point is getting somebody independent to verify the fund)

It might be that it's all too much for her but if that's the case she needs to ask for help as its getting to crunch time if you have an event coming up and you need access to funds. The issue here is nobody wants to think badly of her or accuse her of anything so warning signals of her not managing this task are being overlooked and the longer it goes on the worse it will get. If she's not coping she really needs someone to step in and take it over - temporarily maybe to take the stress away or if it's worse the sooner it's discovered the better.

You have 2 choices - walk away now or speak to the head and raise these concerns, you can do it from the pov that youre worried about her the stress of it etc and maybe she's too proud to ask for help. Stress to the head youre not a gossip or rumour monger but it's "the schools money" and youre afraid that sooner or later someone is going to get fed up of being owed money or if her not attending meetings or the lack of information and going to kick up more of a fuss and it could get very unpleasant. It could anyway but she can't say you didn't raise it.

Personally I think it's odd she's still doing it when she hadn't got children at the school any more. I couldn't wait to hand over the Pta when my DC left primary, and her behaviour does raise red flags with me.

YANBU.

The head should be more concerned than it sounds as though she is. Ask the chair for the bank statement and cc the HT.

Have the accounts ever been audited or anyone seen the bank statements? If not it would concern me that she has been doing the role for years with no oversight.

Yea at least 3 red flags there which alone wouldn't be a major concern but together mean it needs sorted.

1 still being involved in a school her dc no longer attend

2 avoiding contact for quite a long period of time

3 not providing proof of her accounts (a printout she's written herself means nothing).

I can't understand why everyone else is so "meh" about this. Is it possible they know what's up but for whatever reason don't want to tell you?

I mean an independent audit rather than doing it herself.

I would say it's much more likely that she's let this slip and is embarrassed about not having up to date records than that she's nicked the money.

But it can't go on. I would definitely see the head and make your point. I know he/she knows, but a separate meeting might make this all be taken a bit more seriously

So the Head is at the meetings and knows what's going on?

The only thing I can think of is that the HT and the Chair know that something serious is going on with the treasurer but don't want to break her confidence.

I couldn't wait to hand over everything when my dc left the school as the amount of time I spent doing the role was not insignificant. It does seem odd that she's held on to it for so long.

I agree this sounds like a worrying situation.

Even if there's nothing dodgy going on and the lack of contact is because she's preoccupied with this family situation, it needs addressing. Even if the treasurer can't make every meeting, they need to be available in some way to provide updates etc. If she can't do this at the moment, then she should be taking a leave of absence.
Although I wouldn't assume that having a job at a financial institution makes someone incapable of fraud or theft. I know it's not a nice thing to think about someone you know (and presumably trust, in the case of the PTA chair and the HT), but it's certainly not an impossible explanation for the treasurers unavailability.

Huppa's suggestions about raising concerns sound sensible too.

Can I add one to Bacon's list:

1. Auditing her own accounts.

Very suspicious indeed!

Given that the main point of a PTA is to support a school financially, the absence of the Treasurer is pretty serious!

If she doesn't make contact within the given timescale the co-signatory should obtain a statement from the bank (which will give you a clue as to whether there's a shortfall) and as a PP suggests, an EGM should be called, regardless of whether there's a shortfall or not. Whether you ask her to resign or agree to a temporary Treasurer taking control whilst she's unavailable is up to the committee.

I don't think you're over-reacting, OP - it's not as though this is just a case of not being able to find the PTA's summer fete bunting!

Huppo's advice is sensible, make sure you cover your arse so none of this can come back on you.

I've been involved with 2 voluntary organisations where the accounting went south. In the first one, there was no foul play but the treasurer wasn't coping but everyone was too polite to point it out ( ). Caused massive problems and eventually the group folded.

The 2nd one, the treasurer did nothing, kept no accounts at all and attempted to clear out the group bank account when they eventually left in a huff.

Both situations were horribly, horribly stressful. For your own peace of mind the written trail of raised concerns will be invaluable.

Yes puddle! That is odd. I've a friend who's an auditor on fraud cases and this is a big red flag.

I suspect either bakeoff or fastdays have the right idea. Although anything is possible.

But I think you should formalise your concerns, and if you don't get a satisfactory response then you should contact the Chair of Governors about the school loaning the PTA money - if your school is anything like ours then there isn't a penny spare and they certainly can't afford to risk money meant for books to loan to the PTA for fete expenses.

I think a shake up in the running of the PTA might be timely.

I'm a treasurer to our PTA and this rings alarm bells for me. Are you sure no- one audits the accounts? It might be worth getting in touch with who does the school main accounts as we have the same bloke that audits both.

The Head needs to get to the bank and ask for a statement and to change the signatories on the account.

How much money was in accounts at last AGM?

at auditing her own accounts.
I helped at a toddler group for five years and even we had the accounts audited by someone other than the treasurer.

Oh my God OP ring the Police I bloody would.

Things can happen and people can do things that would seem completely out of character!

When I was at secondary school our head teacher talked about her home,massive and gorgeous by all accounts and she started to drive a very expensive sports car and I mean very expensive.My Mum worked at the school and had noticed some things about the heads behaviour but no one would listen and the school was having financial problems,lack of art equipment,lack of text books,lack of basics needed to run the school smoothly and at the time the Government weren't doing so bad and our local schools were being well provided for.

The Head was taking money from the school and from what I was told it had been going on for well over a year.

Go with your gut instinct OP and get it reported,the poor parent she owes the £50 to must be really fed up as well by now?!