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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

583 replies

PTAmissing · 16/05/2016 07:06

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?!

OP posts:
Sunnymeg · 27/05/2016 16:35

I still think that the money was never paid in to the PTA bank account in the first place. She shouldn't have been able to obtain a debit card on a club and society bank account, due to the account classification. If she has then I would definitely take that up with the bank. I guess she has managed to get away with this for quite some time. I am so sorry for you and the rest of the committee who have worked hard for the good of the school. My advice now is for the other signatory to contact the bank and inform them of the issues. I would then look to open a new bank account to enable the PTA to operate whilst fraud investigations etc are made. I just hope that this does not spoil your half term. Best wishes

ProfYaffle · 27/05/2016 16:35

x-post

chewingawasp · 27/05/2016 16:35

Surely another signatory can obtain copy statements from the bank? I don't understand why the HT and Treasurer are not busting a gut to see what has happened to the money.

chewingawasp · 27/05/2016 16:37

That's true sunnymeg. If the Treasurer was too tied up to even call the Chair or HT then she would not have made time to go to the bank to deposit money presumably.

ProfYaffle · 27/05/2016 16:41

Yy, in our situation we were able to get a balance and at least confirm that no money had gone missing.

mythbustinggov · 27/05/2016 16:41

chewing as the Chair has changed and is not very effective, I bet the mandate has never been changed so the signatories are all people from years ago - the Head shouldn't really be a signatory on the PTA account, it's not a school account and there could be a conflict of interest or collusion.

I'd be not at all surprised given the complete lack of control for the past few years (as related on the thread) that the Treasurer is the only one who knows anything about the account and access to it.

cozietoesie · 27/05/2016 16:42

I think they're reacting to her as they would to a friend or family member, chewing.

GhoulWithADragonTattoo · 27/05/2016 16:52

Please call Police today. Every day you wait gives her time to steal more money or cover her tracks. And it might be more than one person colluding. Thapt needs investigating too you have loads of evidence of likely theft and fraud.

JinRamen · 27/05/2016 17:03

I am glad things are now moving in the right direction. Do you think they will call the police though?

JinRamen · 27/05/2016 17:06

Oh and the head needs to get to the bank ASAP as a co signatory.

BitOutOfPractice · 27/05/2016 17:16

Oh heck. I kept hoping there was an innocent explanation Sad

Bolograph · 27/05/2016 17:25

I have run a charity account and no, we couldn't have a debit card on it (or manage it online or anything else useful, which is a PITA but I understand the needs for checks and balances)

Check and balances which appear, in this case, to have not been worth the paper on which they were written.

Ellybellyboo · 27/05/2016 17:48

I still think that the money was never paid in to the PTA bank account in the first place.

Yes I agree. This happened with a treasurer of our school's PTA.

Stupidly, the money from stalls/events wasn't counted or signed for when handed over so she was able to siphon off money without it ever being recorded or counted.

It came out that she'd been doing it for years with small amounts and no one had ever really noticed, then she announced that we'd only taken £500 at the summer fair, and once costs had been accounted for we had run at a loss.

There had been a few questions asked after previous events, but this time it was bloody obvious something fishy was going on. We'd sold out of raffle tickets so that was at least £1k, I'd been running the bar and knew we'd taken a fair wack, the BBQ had sold out, etc, etc, and the only costs we really had were from the bar and BBQ food as everything else had been donated.

I'd definitely be calling the police now rather than waiting a week, that gives the treasurer a lot of time to cover her tracks

Puzzledandpissedoff · 27/05/2016 17:52

I'm very sorry, though not surprised, that it's turned out like this

I'm not even going to comment on them giving her so much additional time to produce the books, except to ask if anyone's considered how this will look, when the police find out the theft became fully evident today and nobody did anything?

Interesting that the treasurer - unable to help for so long - was apparently able to come to the school for yet more money, but hardly unexpected I suppose Hmm

joangray38 · 27/05/2016 17:57

OP the fate may be salvageable if you go to the police/ local press now as local businesses love giving to schools etc in times of crisis etc. Parents may well be supportive with donations etc .If the fate isn't salvageable be ready for lots of complaining parents who wil forget you tried to make everyone aware of this. Have you contacted the people she/ pta owe money to? They might be willing to go down police/ civil route to get their money back.

DartmoorDoughnut · 27/05/2016 18:01

Hope the fete goes ok

OVienna · 27/05/2016 18:12

The woman had time to go to the school to try to GET MORE MONEY???? Crazy.

Hippywannabe · 27/05/2016 18:15

OMG, I was so hoping that this would have a happy ending.

ANewIdentitytoJazzItUpABit · 27/05/2016 18:22

Bloody hell. I could nevef ever do something like this. How can these people sleep at night?!

StillYummy · 27/05/2016 18:32

This is one of those situations where being rite feels shit. In my experience the people you voiced your concerns to will feel really defensive about the fact they downplayed them and your relationship will probably suffer.

Well done, you did the right thing Flowers

Puzzledandpissedoff · 27/05/2016 18:47

In my experience the people you voiced your concerns to will feel really defensive about the fact they downplayed them and your relationship will probably suffer

With some sadness, I have to agree

Frankly, I'm also not convinced about parents subbing the PTA for the lost money. Given that this is at least partly down to poor governance, I'd expect those who've already supported events, etc, to take a dim view of chucking yet more into a potential black hole - although maybe with a completely new committee that might change?

redexpat · 27/05/2016 18:51

I was hoping for a more positive update too .

dowhatnow · 27/05/2016 19:20

It sounds as if nobody will ever begin to untangle how much has gone missing. Nobody will have any records of what should have been paid in.

Is anyone is a position to rough guess how much there really should be? The deception could have been going on for years. If she said £5k last time it could be a whole lot more than that.

cozietoesie · 27/05/2016 19:53

If she doesn't come up with some sort of records then I'd argue that it's best to start the PTA and its activities again. It sounds as if no-one will ever know what the true score was. (Although you should gather what funds you can from her/any bank account.)

Bolograph · 27/05/2016 20:20

I'd argue that it's best to start the PTA and its activities again

Parents at the school might quite properly ask what magic spell is going t be woven such that the same thing won't happen again.