Sure seems to me that if your members voted and approved a budget, that they should be asked to vote on any additional fundraising projects and how the money would be spent. The reason for a budget is to lay out a financial plan and a direction for the group's activity for the year. The members rightfully should assume the PTO is working that plan as approved. Justifying the board's actions because no one has asked about the fundraiser seems like the first step to disregarding your members' input altogether. You may bore a few members at a meeting by voting on something they all like ...but they have a right and a responsibilty to approve the group's activities.
At the beginning of the year our PTO approved the proposed budget, then the board did a fundraiser that wasn't on the budget that was approved and chose where they wanted to designate that money raised from the fundraiser. Our big project for the year is refurbishing our stage so they designated the money there. Do we need to vote on this? There has been 2 general meetings since the fundraiser has been added on as a line item. And only 1 person asked about the fundraiser and it wasn't until after the meeting had already adjourned. We asked at least 2 times if there was questions (about the budget,then at the end about questions or comments concerns) and no one said anything. So my question is do we need to vote the line item for the fundraiser on there and do we need to vote on where the funds we raised should go? Also when we sent the fundraiser form home we also sent a letter home stating where the money we made from it was going to go. Then if we do need to vote on it at the next meeting (3rd one after it has already been on there) then how do we go about it?
Thank you to anyone that can enlighten me. This is the 1st time I have been on a board.
THANK YOU!
~Kwade