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?!

I don't think men are necessarily more honest are they?

Why would more men help?

Yeah, because men committing theft and fraud is totally unheard of; it's a female only crime!

Men commit fraud too you know!

Laughable. There are men out there who are astronomically shit with money on an everyday basis, as well as those who are perfectly willing to commit fraud.

Surely the likelihood of someone committing fraud isn't affected by the gender balance in an organisation?

The two times I've known this happen, one was a man and one a woman so there's a 50/50 balance for you

Making the committee more diverse (it's not really about gender per se, it's about it not forming an homogenous group that all "get on with each other") would make it more likely that things were challenged. If you have a committee who are all friendly, share interests, understand the pressures, know what it's like, it's very easy to avoid challenging behaviour and actions that are worrying. It's precisely the reason why better gender and ethnic representation in boardrooms (usually in that case "more women") is a good thing: people from outside the charmed circle are less likely to "understand" problems and more like to challenge them.

A lot of primary schools have governors, PTA and SMT who form a homogenous group with strong social connections. That's lovely, but not so good when the money goes missing.

Yes but if there are plenty of men around, they can keep the wimmin in check and stop them getting above themselves. And do the hard bits of adding up.

Then the wimmin will be free to be the secretary, or make sammiches for everyone, or organise thank you cards and flowers and shit.

I wonder if Retrorobot means that men are less likely to be "naice" and non-confrontational? In which case a man is more likely to have brought the issue to a head long before now, where people(in this case women) are tiptoeing around the treasurer, seemingly scared of causing a fuss?

I think her point was that men are more direct with questions while women tend to be less likely to say something for fear of offending people. Not sure I agree though.

Seriously, the best way to prevent fraud is to have regular checks on a person. When people are left to their own devices with loads of money they become tempted. Someone given free reign over PTA finances for 10 years with no one checking anything is asking for trouble.

Anyone involved with a PTA, club or organization, you need to make sure you have good checks in place. It saves so much heartache.

Sammiches.

If you google "PTA treasurer stole money" it's surprising how often this happens.

Well, it seems casual sexism is still alive and well.

I'll tell you the problem here. OP HAS been direct about this and has not been afraid to confront the issue despite her vagina holding her back.

Trouble is, she hasn't been listened to.
Now if she was a man, do we think she would have been taken seriously?
Yes. Of course she would.

We HAVE plenty of direct and capable women. The problem that needs addressing here is the sexism they are faced with - not 'oh well, we'd better get some men in instead.'

And some posters on this thread are doing a great job of perpetuating this shite.

If it was me I would now write a letter of registration and state why I was resigning.

I think the treasurer, chair and head teacher are all to close in their relationship and are not looking at the whole picture.

The fact of the matter is that for whatever the reason is the treasurer is not carrying our her duties.

She is with holding all PTA's financial information from the PTA.

I don't know how the PTA can continue to take money from parents of children while not knowing what has happen to the £7k.

I thought that when the head said you could call an EGM she was reflecting your constitution (any committee member may call an EGM provided a second committee member is in agreement). Fair enough for you to be the one to propose the meeting as you were the one voicing your concerns. But now the head is trying to stop you taking this action?

I'm almost 100% sure that your constitution requires formal discussion and vote for any changes to it to be made.

You say that the head is lovely, trustworthy, etc, but she does seem to be pussyfooting around instead of taking formal steps to clarify matters. Don't step down from the PTA, OP - your committee needs members like you to keep things clear! The formal procedures aren't just to make things look official - they're to ensure the smooth and proper running of an organisation.

any committee member may call an EGM provided a second committee member is in agreement

While this is quite true, what surprises me is that the head/chair seem to be completely flaky on chasing up the treasurer, but seek to "go by the book" when a meeting needs to be called. Somehow it just doesn't hang together ...

Familiarity often breeds .....lassitude in such matters. People can get themselves into an 'Oh I'll do that next week' attitude and, too soon, a month is over.....and then the next one......and before you realise it, it has become very late on indeed, even, perhaps, embarrassing or (almost) unrecoverable.

As a PP said, the rules are there to ensure smooth running but they also protect people. It's possible for funds to become just bags of loose cash which sit around in kitchen drawers. Just eg 'PTA money' which loses its significance to the holder.

The fallout from what might be just plain 'oversights' can be awful, locally, so action must be taken at the earliest possible stage. If everything is fine, there will be few consequences.

How does the money raised at events get counted? Ideally it should be checked by at least two independent people and recorded. Do the PTA minutes give details of funds raised at events? Or is the treasurer just taking the money and counting it at home? As a minimum you need the last twelve months of bank statements to be produced at the meeting together with an up to date account balance (printed by the bank). You need the years worth of bank statements to prevent the treasurer covering their tracks.

Audits are expensive. Hard to find someone qualified to do one for free. For a small charity, better to have a report of cash balance at each meeting, and summary of monies in & out since last mtg.

Retrobot I worked in a dodgy solicitors, the two that went to prison for stealing client's money - both men. The person that blew the whistle - woman. Your post is really offensive!

update

Spoke with other concerned mum today. She spoke with chair yesterday who copied her in on my email and her response. Apparently chair didn't mean this week, she meant end of next week for contact .

Chair is planning on going to her house with another committee member if no contact. I asked concerned mum what if no contact then? She said chair would go to the bank and seek to remove treasurer from the account. I said that would take a long time and we need cash for summer fair (float is usually £500) what would happen if we couldn't get in contact?

Also when was the last time anyone saw a bank statement? Report at AGM was done by treasurer.

Concerned mum agreed that it was very dodgy for all of us to have lack of transparency. Most pressing issue being no access to the money. Chair is talking about changing the constitution on advice from the head but that will take a while.

So we've decided to call an EGM (she's calling it I've seconded). Waiting until end of next week is ridiculous since we've been trying to contact her for months.

Head is concerned apparently as is chair but situation is awkward as she's been our treasurer for so long and previously reliable. Also she has family illness which is the main problem behind her commitment. I sympathise but there comes a point where it becomes untenable. Will see what happens at EGM!

I don't think chair is in cahoots with anything, she's only been chair for a short time. Head is in no way involved in anything.

name change fail er ignore that bit

It sounds rather like 'head in sand' behaviour on their part.

This has been going on for too long and you all need to have it regularised.