Question: Legal action

The executive PTO is to provide bank statements to the building treasurers. they have ignored all request since August. They give answers to appease us only to not follow through, they even emailed the administration in November that they would have them shortly it's now March and still nothing. Can we take legal action for them not making the financials available to its members.

Asked by Anonymous

Answers:

Advice from PTO Today

Craig writes:
I'm not 100 percent clear from your description what the structure is (ie Are you saying there a town-wide PTO that handles all the cash, with separate PTOs in each school?), so I'll answer generally. In a situation where, over a period of time, someone isn't doing what they should or what they've promised, it helps to find out why that thing hasn't been done. And I mean the real reason -- not the "I haven't had time" type of lip-service reason. Is the task really too hard? Are they afraid of giving you the information for some reason? Have records been poorly kept so the information is incomplete? etc. If you can talk directly to the person who should be performing the task, you might be able to get the real reason it hasn't been done. Once you find that out, you can discuss a reasonable solution -- maybe it's a modified version of the original request. Maybe it's quarterly statements instead of monthly -- whatever fits for your situation.

I can't say whether legal action would be possible or not, but it's expensive and divisive and in any case should be used as an absolute last resort.

Community Advice

kidstogo writes:
We finally had to send a certified letter requesting records. When they failed to comply we went to the school who made the request. When they finally got a hold of the bank statements they turned it over to the authorities. long story short the two people signing the checks wrote more than 80 checks to themselves between last June and April 2013 They were charged with stealing more than $35,000 from the organization. So if anyone tells you that the funds in your PTO are" None OF Your Business" Immediately demand an explanation! And don't let it go!!