YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!!!! Unfortunately, I know I sounded angry to you BUT just imagine how I came across the principal in writing. You know I am very upset because as i explained the fact that I called and she did not return my call then I came in and she was in a class then she "pulls me to the carpet" over a parent whom over stated the situation and then some..i have zero tolerance for ignorance(for lack of a better term) and the principal NEEDS this PTO beleive you me. I feel as though much more support should have been shown.
I emailed her and vented royally then resigned do you know her reply to me was NOT a letter home, not a phone call, not a "let's meet" but a one liner that simply stated the executive board and I have to meet to discuss financials!!! Hello !!! I said I resign and that is all I get..so my feeling is this: Communication goes a long way and so does showing some appreciaition for the efforts of myself and our PTO...
I appreciate all of the great feedback here and I feel like smacking myself for the way I handled this BEFORE talking to you great experts BUT as we say about hinesight.
I will however, state that I felt she should have made a gesture to say Please do not resign, but she did not so I do not feel I should be the one to rescind my statement...too much pride? maybe, however to me all she had to do was call me and advise the parent this is what I need to do is to talk to the PTO President and perhaps we all could meet or I need 24 hrs to get back to you, especially with the $40.00 case because the owner of the check was so non challant about the matter because she knew I was on it and the principal sides way too much with parents...and before you go there...I know that is her job BUT what's fair is fair.
DaveP. (as always ) has some great info there conserning the check issues. Let me see what I can offer as far as the Principal is concerned. In the time I have been doing this, the FIRST person everyone wants to complain to is the manager or the Principal. In this case all this mom knows or remembers is writing a check to the school not your PTO so when you call her first reaction was probably "who the he__ is this?"
I understand that this was something you wanted to tackle and you have more guts than I do for that but hinesight, letting the Principal know would have been a good damage control kinda thing to do.....yeah? I'm just as guility.
My mom told me something that just so fits here "You work harder at this PTO thing than you did that nice office job you had!" She still thinks I'm crazy. moms......
I am going to deal with this like a business - which is what your organization is.
1) Yes you should have taken the fee from the principal if she was choosing to pay it. As a business you dont care where the money comes from you care that you collected the fees.
2) You should not resubmit the checks. Once the bank has "bounced" it you should have a letter that you send to the person who wrote it, include a copy of the check. You should spell out any fees that are being charged with a total due and the method for payment (will you accept another check? Most dont, money order or cash). This should be done within 5 business days of the bank returning the check to you.
3) If you do not get a response within a reasonable amount of time (normally 5 business days plus a day or two for the mailing say 7 days) you need to send a follow up letter, this letter should explain your next course of action such as filing law suit to recoup the monies, but never ever say this unless you intend to do it!
4) If you do have to file suit, you will need to bring copies of your correspondance, the check (with copies). Does your state have a triple damages clause for bad check writters? If so file for that amount plus fees, plus court cost - you are not entitled to recouping wages for being in court if you have to take a day off work.
5) If you do not want to sue, after the second reminder forget it, write it off!
6) You can get more bees with sugar than you can with sour grapes - so when dealing with people that write a bad check always be polite.
With the amount of bad checks you are handling maybe you need to re examine your check acceptance policy! Although it is no guarentee that you wont have bad checks but one idea is to not accept checks with a check number below 500! Some banks print on their checks "customer since xxxx" if this is like yesterday refuse to take the check.
One thing though, if you are going to accept checks you need a check writing policy in writing. It explains how checks are accepted, what is accepted, what the fees will be for non sufficient fund returns and the policy for collecting these fees plus the face value of the check.
As for resigning - take a deep breath! You are like most of us (well maybe all) you take your organization seriously and you see these checks as a personal afront - how could anyone write a bad check to an organization there to help the school and the kids. How could anyone try to cheat us like this? I know it is hard, but dont take it personally and dont take the reactions of others personally either. Keep on doing the best you can, and remind people you dont do this for a living and you are as human as they are [img]smile.gif[/img]
First situation--in most places, you're required to notify people in advance of their responsibility for bad check charges to be able to collect it. If you publicized that policy, and have a set procedure to collect those charges, and the principal was aware of it, then yes, I'd respect the principal's decision to override it. It's her school; she may know more about the person's financial situation than you do, or she just may not think the hassle is worth the $30 (or whatever the fee was). She did offer to make your group whole, but I don't think I would take the principal's money just as a matter of principle.
If the principal was unaware of the collection policy or attempt, or if the fee collection policy was not generally publicized, then I definitely wouldn't take the principal's money. First, you have to assume in situations like this that the person would try to contact the principal, so the principal should have been prepared. If she got blindsided, I can definitely see where she would have decided just to make the situation go away. Second, if you haven't publicized the fee charges, you'd be lucky to get them back anyway.
As for the second situation--it does seem strange that she would write the check without checking it out with you or your treasurer first; whether the money was double collected would be very easy to verify. If the principal didn't specifically ask for reimbursement, I don't think I'd offer it. But, sounds like this came on the heels of the other situation. Is it possible that your principal was so put off by the way you handled the first one that she didn't even want to deal with you on the second??
There's a lot of anger in your post--seems extreme to resign over these two relatively minor issues. Don't get me wrong--maybe you're just venting here (and this is the place to do it!) and you were much calmer in your actual dealings with the principal. I know you said that you were a small school, but I can't believe we're talking about more than $75 here on two isolated cases. It's certainly not worth going to the school board about, IMO. I'm wondering if there aren't some other considerations here....
PREZ2004--Forgive me, but how does resigning your position help to solve your dilemma? Doesn't resigning mean you just want to pass the buck? Obviously, checks that come back as NSF will happen again and again. Your PTO needs to set a policy as to how this situation will be addressed. That being said, I believe you are right, this should remain a problem of the PTO. The principal only stepped in when the parents complained to her directly, right? Maybe the appropriate response is to sit down with the principal and decide together what is the best way to handle NSF fees. The real question is, who should pay these fees, the school and by extension the PTO (because, obviously, the people who wrote the checks see you and the school as one)or the person who wrote the check? Again, you are right the person who wrote the check should pay the fees, however it is not always possible to collect. In the future perhaps the PTO could budget for these as expenses knowing that a small percentage of checks will incur the NSF fees. Include this as an expense of the fundraiser. This is a cost of doing business. I am not saying that you shouldn't try to collect the extra fees, but there will be times when you cannot. Unfortunately, the PTO has to be the one to cover these costs--you put on the fundraiser.
Pay the principal back as part of your meeting. (Use PTO funds. It shouldn't come out of your pocket either.) Tell her that she should not be the one to foot this bill. You wanted the person who wrote the check to cover the expense. Ask her how she thinks this type of situation should be handled in the future. Understand that she is caught between you and an irate parent. It may have been worth $40 to her to get out from under.
Remember, the PTO, especially the board, needs to have a good working relationship with the princinpal. You do great work, but only with some assistance from the principal--the use of the copier, the school building for meetings and fundraisers, access to the parents through notes sent home with the students, notices posted on the school's bulletin board, etc.
p.s. Reconsider your resignation. You can't do your school or the students much good if you quit.
I am a PTO President at a small elementary school where we just had a fundraiser. We had approx. $523.00 in returned checks. I took it upon myself(being a past debt collector)to tackle this once and for all.
I collected the face of someones check through redeposit BUT she still owes the PTO a fee for the services. Well I attempted 2 times to collect and she said "YOU got your money on the check now wait on the fee's" calls the principal to complain and instead of the principal referring her back to us in a show of support she tells her she will take care of it. Principal pulled me to the side and said; she said you were rude and I will take care of her fee's so I was like 'WHAT##@@$%% anyway....I told the principal NO and it was the person who wrote the checks to get back to me with the money. Was this right? Should I have taken the money from the principal? I feel I did the right thing.
Secondly~~~A parents check was redeposited and cleared and now she claims she paid for a check back in November when I just redeposited it last week. She calls irate to the principal and instead of the principal contacting me to advise and or ask what is going on she issues a over $40.00 refund. Do I now owe the principal? Should she have budded in yet again on our financial matters what's going on here?
Please assist me because of her I have resigned my post effective last month but feel I should NOT have because this principal seems to be stepping over her boundaries...I want to go to the school board..but is that the right forum. I can not even step foot into that school because of her and I feel I am letting alot of people down by doing this.so please help me! Thanks!
) has some great info there conserning the check issues. Let me see what I can offer as far as the Principal is concerned. In the time I have been doing this, the FIRST person everyone wants to complain to is the manager or the Principal. In this case all this mom knows or remembers is writing a check to the school not your PTO so when you call her first reaction was probably "who the he__ is this?"
Thanks! 
