When you revise your bylaws, you should try to accomadate both federal, state aand local requirements into them, so they are not in conflict.
Also, it might be good to say something to the effect that any part of the bylaws that does comply with local, state or federal laws is null and void, but the rest remains in effect.
Tammy, if you have revised your bylaws, and you're a 501c3, I thought you're supposed to send a new copy to both the state and the IRS. So, at all times, there should only be one approved version. Am I missing something?
We needed a "signed and dated" copy of our by-laws to get a raffle license in the state of MI. Althought we did get our license, the state of MI didn't really care for our IRS approved by-laws. We are meeting this month to revise them. What sections do your by-laws include? I would love to have a few examples of other PTO's by-laws. If you'd care to share your complete document, please email them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Robert Rules of Order (for what it is worth) hasn't mentioned anything about signing the bylaws. Of all the changes I have been through for our by-laws this have never come up. I would really just make you have a couple others with you on this so years later (like in my case) it isn't believed one person wrote the by-laws and who did he think he was.
The IRS just wanted a copy of our by-laws. I don't rmember having the entire board sign but I did sign a statement saying these were the official ones approved by a vote of the PTO on such-and-such a date. It was also in our minutes for the meeting.
When we approved our bylaws, the IRS wanted a copy of them with a sheet that had the signatures of all members present who voted to accept the by-laws. It had to be dated too. As we've made revisions, we have followed the same procedure.
