debbie,
Does ONLY your executive board members vote on the issues at hand? OUr bylaws state that we would put to a vote before the PTO membership that are in attendance and eligible to vote any expenses exceeding $75. and changes in budgets, bylaws & the major stuff that we want to change. Our Executive Board makes decisions alone that are the usual business decisions.
If you are changing your bylaws and want to make your membership feel more included in what goes on, you can also change the voting section as well so that voting can include your membership. However, we have stipulations that a person voting must have attended 2 meetings, be a member of the PTO and in good standing. That way, if a person that just shows up at a meeting, they are excluded from the vote since they are unaware of the issue at hand & could possibly not be a PTO member. Just something you may want to consider
Are you saying your Executive Board is comprised of only the elected officers, so that's where the voting issue comes in?
In the PTOs in which I am/was a member, the Board made most of the financial decisions for the group, so we wanted a large board. It consisted of more than just elected officers.
As far as elected officers - my groups had 4 or 5 elected positions. One had parlimentarian, one didn't. Each had only one VP.
However, in both cases, the Board was comprised of the elected officials plus the committee chairs (including volunteer coordinator), the principal, teacher rep. The elementary PTO also had grade reps (6). We had nice size group for making decisions, so an even/odd number didn't really matter.
OUr school only had one vice president. We never had the need to split up the responsibilities since one person could always handle it. If you've had no problem in only having 5 serve on the board and all responsibilities are easily taken care of by the 5, then you could put it to a vote to change the bylaws and eliminate the extra position.
Maybe it was added at a time that people couldn't juggle as much time and they needed to split the tasks. Future PTO boards can always change it back if they see a need. Just clearly outline what the responsibilites are for that VP and cover whatever the 2 positions were supposed to accomplish.
We only have a president, vice, secretary & treasurer. Talk to your group and if the majority rules, change it. If a by-law isn't working you can amend them, check your by-laws for the details. (ours has to be discussed at a meeting and voted on. if 10% of the school isn't there we send home a parent survey and vote the next meeting. everyone's by-laws are different.)
Our bylaws state that we should have a President, First Vice, Second Vice, Treasurer, Corresponding Secretary & Recording Secretary. This is our first year with a new President & Treasurer, and we made it an issue to go through our bylaws and update them (they are very old) membership is $1. We noticed that there should be 6 officer spots, and we know that for the past 7 years they have only had 5 (one vice president).
Should we change it to be 5? I see it being a problem with voting having an even number. Am I wrong in thinking this way, or is there a reason to have 2 vice presidents?
