I already convinced him once not to quit so I think this time he's pretty much definitely made up his mind, but it's a thought. I'll post an update after our meeting tomorrow night.
Funny you being in Chicago-I LOVE Chicago! In fact, I was proposed to in Zio's, a little Italian restaurant downtown (it was a long time ago, don't know if it's still there), and even though we never did get married I still have 2 Chicago posters framed and hanging in my LR.

Hey flmom - I lived in Pgh. for 17 years before moving to Chicago, so seems like everything comes full circle in life. PLEASE remember that you are in this for the kids. If there is anything you can do to convince Mr. Anal to stay on as treasurer, you will have served a great purpose. (By the way - I agree that anal is good when it comes to accounting/treasurer!) Suggest that perhaps he could be peripheral - handle money and accounting issues, etc. and have the VP perhaps act as liason between treasurer and board. Do what you can to hang on to him!

Best wishes at your meeting tonight, and let us know what happens.

Actually, we have an emergency board meeting tomorrow night. The Treasurer already told me he's planning to quit b/c too many people have told him he's too anal and since monies aren't being handled properly it's taking too much of his time. (I personally think being anal is a desirable trait in a Treasurer.)Of course, that will put the books right back into the President's hands, or the hands of one of her friends. I'm planning to raise the issue of an audit again, as I did at our first meeting, but I fully expect it to get shot down again.
The problem is that no one else saw the way the money was handled last year and I don't want to go around bad mouthing this woman when I have to admit I don't know of another way it could have been handled since it was basically the two of us doing most things; I was happy not to have the responsibility for the cash myself, but by the end of the year the cavalier attitude and refusal to account for anything were sending up warning signals, and it wasn't until I was able to look back over the year that I could see anyone who questioned her got run off and I started worrying. I thought having this new-anal-guy as our Treasurer would be great b/c it would stop a lot of things, but now he's been run off too.
Last year was my first year in any kind of board position and there is still a lot I don't know,which is why I was so happy it is a ptA and not a ptO since they have national, state and county procedures in place, but if everyone is ignoring them and no one but me is upset about that, I'm the bad guy for making waves. I believe in time some of the new board will come to realize something is wrong,(if they haven't quit) but it took me a whole year and by then we could be in real trouble.
It has also occured to me that the Prez or one of her friends may very likely be reading this forum, so I may be digging a hole I can't get out of here.
BTW, I'm originally from PGH. myself.

Why don't you have a board meeting with the other new board members and talk about your concerns? I can imagine the other members do not want to speak up because they don't feel they know enough about the situation, and don't want to get on her bad side. I would have a copy of the by-laws and see what is not being followed. If you don't have a copy of your local by-laws, the state office should. They need to be updated every 5 or so many years and copies must be sent to the state to be approved.
Pennsylvania PTA sends us out a nice big book on state guidelines for every board position. There is a great section on correct handling of PTA monies. If you'd like I could snail mail you a copy of that section. Just realized that they only send this book to Presidents, so (if you're in PA) guess who would have your copy?! Here is a direct quote, "The treasurer is responsible for receiving and depositing all monies. For the tresurer's protection, that responsibility should never be delegated or relinquished to someone else such as the president or a committee chairman." The second sentence is underlined.
Last thought, if you don't correct this bad situation, who will? C'mon, girl, you can do it!

Quack quack - - -

#1 - go to your principal in a friendly manner and ask if the school district has a financial auditor who would be willing to audit your books for free? If not - ask around for a CPA with kids at the school, or a local CPA firm that would be willing to do this for the free publicity that you promise them at the next 100 general meetings and a public thank you in the newsletter. Get those books audited and do it NOW. This part can be done pretty quietly, just go to this wonderful woman and tell her that you realize just how busy she is and how generous with her time so you have found a volunteer to get the finances in order so that you are starting "clean" (so to speak).

#2 - do not sign one more check that you question the validity of. You need to have those checks and balances in place. (Have you read the article on stealing from groups in the most recent issue of PTOToday? I wanted to write a letter to the person who stole so much money the kids had raised.) If you have email, I'll be happy to send you the forms that we use - we plagiarized them from Critter! If you don't have email I'll snail mail, fax or smoke signal them to you. Get something in place now to safeguard your own reputation.

#3 - get a treasurer, not in name only. A breathing human with a heart beat who is willing to do the work. You might be able to even tell them that they don't have to come to meetings if they don't want to tolerate being around the president.

If you have any other questions - feel free to email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Do not let yourself get dragged down by this person.

GOOD LUCK!

Cathie

LOL re the duck comment-I've been thinking the exact same thing, and now I'm "duck hunting".
Unfortunately there aren't that many parents who attend our meetings, and the ones who do and show any kind of initiative get sucked into the black hole of board positions as fast as we can get them; that translates into an all novice board though, which is then "led" by the one person who has lots of experience and a strong personality. I spoke to our past Secretary recently and mentioned that the General meeting hadn't gone well, and when she asked what happened I said well, so-and-so was questioned about some things she did, and that was all I had to say...You do NOT question her authority in any way, and the ex-Secretary was rolling her eyes and saying "Oh no" immediately.
Last year the way the Prez performed the Treasurer duties was laughable-she'd throw money into her purse, into her trunk, actually admitted she had 10 deposits in her house b/c she didn't have time to go to the bank (over a period of months), we went 3 months without a Treasurer's Report and when I pointed out how bad that looked, the fourth month she gave an "unofficial" report of "This is how much was in the bank at 2PM today, this is what we paid for-but no receipts-and that's all I had time to do."
The problem is that I keep getting told we've always done things this way and there's never been a problem, so why worry? Don't you trust her? Well, I know for a fact that she was in a money crunch last year b/c she would talk about it, and this year it's gotten worse, so yeah, I worry. Especially since my name is on a lot of those checks and I was her best buddy while I was going along with the program, but now she's trying everything she can to discredit me. I saw it last year too-the one person who kept trying to hold her accountable was harassed and talked about behind his back until he finally got fed up and quit; since I was honest about my feeling that he did have a point, every reference to him is prefaced by, "Your FRIEND so-and-so..."
Frankly, I'm vacillating between quitting myself b/c I worry about this a lot and no one else who has any experience seems to give a damn, and being stubborn and sticking it out, even though I know she can make my life a living hell.