You, and any other member of your group, have the right to see all the financial information, absolutely! Even if the current treasurer had been reelected, the PTO needs to have an annual audit, which requires access to the books. You could recruit a friend for treasurer, but you might also want to consult your bylaws for the rules on filling officer vacancies. Also, you might want to consider putting your Principal on the bank account as an authorized signer. Normally, I'm not a fan of the principal being a signer, but you need to have 2 signers for good financial control and your principal might be the best choice until you build up the org. Put all 3 of you as authorized, and you can always find 2 to sign a check.
Since you are not currently an authorized signer, you could conduct the audit for the year. Yes, you not only need to take a look at the books, you need to take possession of them.
Once you get the checkbook, verify it has been balanced for each month, if not, that's up to you. Visit the bank branch where the account was opened and talk to the manager to find out who is currently on the account and explain the situation. Find out what they need in order for you to change account signers. While you're at it, verify the tax id number on the account. Hopefully it's one specifically for your PTO. Make sure the bank statements will be mailed to someone other than one of last year's officers. You may need to check the school's mail all summer to watch for outstanding invoices if there's no record of bills paid/outstanding. Considering it doesn't sound like your new treasurer is going to get alot of training from your old treasurer, I'd suggest you get a copy of the Treasurer's Toolkit from this site. It covers all the responsibilities of the treasurer.
Good luck. Your students are lucky you're taking on this job and not just letting the PTO die away.
What happens if yuo get hit by the proverbial truck? one person is never enough, gotta have at least one other, how bout someone on staff, the pricnipal, a teacher who is inovled or someone like that, until you can vote in a treasurer?
You should absolutely have access to all the financial records. How can you lead the organization without that knowledge?
As for finding someone to be treasurer, I would agree that you need to do that. That way there are two of you handling the finances so there less chance of being accused of any misappropriation by anyone.
I do have another suggestion to: If you and the person you find to serve as treasurer want to review the books that's fine, but I would highly recommend that you find an outside source to do an audit of the records. It will give you an opportunity to have a totally non-biased person look at the records and provide any findings or any tips for better recordkeeping they might have. If I was a member of your group, I would expect that and feel more comfortable with the financial aspects of the organization. It also keeps you from looking like you're on a witch hunt or that you might be manipulating things yourself. Plus, I always feel like an annual audit helps give the incoming board a clean slate to work from.
Hi all,
I was elected pres of our PTO for next year. We have extremely low parental involvement, and in fact, I am currently the only officer. Two officers from this year are leaving the school and the treasurer, well, no one has heard from her.
At the last meeting, the outgoing pres handed me an accordion folder with all of our files in it (why we only have one folder of files is another long, messy story)which included some checks to be deposited, which I'm not sure she was even aware of.
I need to take a look at the checkbook and bank statements. We havent had a financial report since April so I have only a vague idea of what our balance is, and I feel that as the only officer, no one's name should be on the bank account except mine. (Do you see that I don't completely trust my officers of this year?)
My husband has suggested to me that I get someone else, preferably someone I know and trust, to act as treasurer at least for the moment, and go get the checkbook from the school and she and I sit down and go over everything together. That way, if anything is wrong, or goes wrong, I won't be left holding the bag. I agree that this is a good idea but I also think that as president, I should have a right to look at all of our financial information--especially since there is no one else to oversee this stuff right now.
