Parents who steal from PTA

[AuditMama]

How common do you think PTA theft is – i.e., parents stealing from PTA funds? If you suspected a parent of stealing from the PTA, what would you do?
www.staffordshire-live.co.uk/news/local-news/woman-jailed-defrauding-primary-school-6637921

And as cost of living crisis gets worse, will there be more incidents of parents stealing from PTA petty cash, etc.? How big does PTA theft have to become, before the authorities will get involved? What role should the school play, if at all, in helping to police this?

Erm sorry to disappoint but I really don't think it's very common...

I don't think it would be very common as the stereotypical pta volunteer isn't generally on the breadline. In my school there is often two people supervising a stall with cash. Treasurers have proceedures to follow to stop this.

No not common. Why do you ask?

I personally know of one chair who stole £20,000. She went to court and got a suspended sentence and made to pay it back in small amounts over many years. Financial controls were obviously non existent at the time but were tightened up afterwards.

I can't imagine it's wide spread, & many PTAs aren't dealing with large sums of money.
If you have any concerns & the PTA is a registered charity, you contact the Charity Commission.

I remember reading a thread on here when someone suspected the treasurer of embezzlement. Never come across it in RL though.

I was treasurer of our schools PTA and, yes, it happens.
We had a professional photographer come to take lovely black and white portrait photos of each child in Yr6 with a blurb as to what I want to be when I grow up on it. All the parents gave permission. They were for a leaving book so we had all the parents participating permission. But the photos came out so lovely that we offered full size A4 versions for framing and said £10 cash, pick your child’s up at the Christmas party. The volunteer we had collecting the cash was £80 short when I counted up the photos sold the next morning. I confronted them and they claimed they’d handed in all the cash and if I said anything they’d accuse me of taking the money instead of putting it in the bank.

One parent would write checks for things like the silent auction we held to raise funds…the check would bounce but then they’d refuse to return the items they had “won” by having the highest bid. We accepted another large check from this parent for lots of raffle tickets to win an iPad and PlayStation (they didn’t win), but you guessed it the check bounced. After that I had to have a tense discussion with PTA about perhaps getting a card reader and not accepting checks at all because banning that one parent would start a gossip firestorm.

Volunteers would often buy things with PTA funds for school fun day bbq at the park and catering for other events like the time we had a play performed. Quite often I’d be going through the receipts for say Tescos and there would be cheeky purchases of items clearly not for the event. Some of these items were a dress, pair of flip flops + beach towel, cat food, etc. I’d confront and the cheeky cows would say no one had ever questioned them before, that I was being an ass hat for checking receipts and if I didn’t like it I could find other volunteers to be my dogsbodies.

I quit being treasurer after two years because I was sick of the petty theft and confrontations.

I disagree with the above and can imagine it’s fairly common, actually. I know of a headteacher who stole several hundred pounds from the PTA and no one noticed, so I can imagine ‘smaller’ sums wouldn’t go amiss. It’s nice to think people are intrinsically honest but I do think a lot of people would be tempted if presented with the opportunity.

I can't believe it's that common. Our pta is a registered charity. Can't imagine theft going unnoticed at all

It should be very difficult. We need two people to count any cash received, two people to authorise any payments, etc…..

I think small-time pilfering of £5-£100 of things like PTA accounts, small time charities, sports clubs, community associations and religious groups is ubiquitous.

I think a lot of people pay themselves "expenses" off the book, justifying grabbing a fiver out of the cash tin for the stamp they bought, and "meaning to put the change in later" and its one of those things that is often turned a blind eye to, especially where its obvious the person is struggling.

Often there are deeper issues like addictions, debt, family problems that lead that to escalate to the point where it becomes it gets stamped down upon. But sometimes that doesnt happen either because the person started getting sneaky, or because eventually other people become complicit either in covering it up, or benefiting from the situation.

I've been involved in three situations where this has happened. In one, someone simply ran off with the cash (hundreds) and was never seen again. In the second (thousands), the treasurer was making up false accounts and forging the co-signatory, who was receiving what ever "expenses" he asked for without question, it all came out when the account was drained and payments started bouncing. And in the third, the person who banked the money had managed to get her bank account linked to the charity account and was making large payments to herself under the guise of a supplier (tens of thousands). as the committee could not be bothered with addressing her belief that she was employed by them, so she just paid herself and they all ignored it.

It happened at my DC’s primary school.
The person involved took the money home after an evening event off the school premises and then claimed she’d mistaken the bag full of bank notes for paper recycling and it had been taken away by a council lorry.

The same person, it transpired, had conned various numbers friends out of money too, and even stolen a mobile phone belonging to one, whilst having coffee in the friend’s house.

The school approached the police but nothing came of it, and the person moved her child to another school.
A short while later, she was caught shoplifting, and then several years later, she booked herself into a local hotel and hanged herself.

What @Discovereads said:

The volunteer we had collecting the cash was £80 short when I counted up the photos sold the next morning. I confronted them and they claimed they’d handed in all the cash and if I said anything they’d accuse me of taking the money instead of putting it in the bank.

I’d confront and the cheeky cows would say no one had ever questioned them before, that I was being an ass hat for checking receipts and if I didn’t like it I could find other volunteers to be my dogsbodies.

Yes. It's all the counteraccusations and threats that are mind-boggling. But others who are aware are ignoring the problem because they feel sorry for those involved and think the problem will go away if everyone does nothing.

@APurpleSquirrel Thanks for the tip about contacting Charity Commission.

It happened a few years back at a primary local to me, was in the local news

God if only, I subbed my PTA hundreds of real money, and thousands more if you count the labour costs...

This is how it should be, but it's hard to introduce these controls to a PTA that has historically been more lax and freewheeling.

@Workingawayfromhomenow Did no one notice, or did no one want to notice? And why/how did the headteacher have access to the funds?