Wasting hard-earned parent group funds drives me crazy. Developing bylaws takes a bit of effort, but hardly calls for a lawyer. Incorporating a non-profit is easy. Paying $4000 for such services is absolutely absurd. Even the most novice of groups could have done that without assistance. If that's all the lawyer provided, your president is an idiot. That's about par with hiring a professional facilitator to run you meeting for you.

The hardest part of formalizing is the application for the 501(c)(3) status. If I were going to get professional help, that's the one area - although not $4000 worth!

If all you've done is incorporate, you aren't truly set up as a charitable organization yet. You still need to file the application with the IRS and pay the $750 fee.

I belong to both a PTO and a PTA right now and I simply don't buy into the idea of vast savings by no longer paying PTA dues. (My personal opinion.) I think you may save a few dollars there, but you more than lose out on the services and processes and training you forfeit. Either organization type can work well - which ever suits YOUR membership best, so the question of which is better isn't relevant for me.

My issue would be any officer making that kind of financial commitment without carefully weighing the options and asking for a vote of the membership.

P.S. What state are you in?

First I I must say that I think it is great that your group is now an incorporated group that will be able to keep all raised funds for the betterment of the school. Keeping that $2200 each year is HUGE!!!!!!!!!

At the same time I disagree with a bit of what your President did. I can understand her desire to switch to a PTO. Being a PTA does nothing but make you give away funds each year. You don't really have a voice in Washington like they would want you to think. But, spending almost $4000 on legal fees is assinine. Often groups looking to do this will get legal services provided for free. At worst you could use the Bylaws that are on this website.

Doing this without approval isn't the best way to go, by any means. She screwed up there, without a doubt.

But, Bylaws stating that only Executive Board members get the right to vote is common. My group's Bylaws indicate this, even though I almost always put everything to a vote at a monthly meeting.

Her making herself the President for the next year, and all of her Executive Board members the same position for the next year, all bad, but kind of too late at this point.

My real question is why are you so upset?

Even with the bad move of $4000 for legal fees, after 2 years your group will come out ahead. I would have done it differently so those funds would have been there next year, but in the end...

Your group is now legal and is it's own entity. That's a good thing. Once the Bylaws issue is resolved then your group will likely be better than ever.

The only issues that you should really have had were...

1. That this happened without approval from the rest of the committee, which is against the Bylaws.

2. That the executive board reinstated themselves, which is against the Bylaws that the group was working from.

3. That she went and hired a lawyer at $4000 without approval.

But here's the thing...

It is what it is. In the end being a PTO is going to be much better than being a PTA.

The $4000 was pretty stupid, but once done it will be made back within two years.

The new Bylaws will hopefully be complete soon and will be for the best. One thing that you should make sure is the terms of office and voting.

But once again, I think this will be all for the best once you get past how it happened. My one question to you is why do you feel that you'll likely be a PTA again and is there a reason why you wish to stay a PTA?

PresidentJim

Has anyone seen a legit invoice for the laywer's "fees"?:confused:

Maybe I'm just cranky today but it seems if she alone hired this lawyer with no input/vote/notice to the membership or, at least the board, then she ought to pay the lawyer herself! That's a lot of money to go and designate to anything with no input at all from others in the group.

Try a sit down with the principal as well to get some details on his/her feelings of the whole situation. Otherwise, I think you're on track with notice in writing and petition.

Hi everyone,

I wonder if anyone has ever run into a situation like this one.

Last year, our middle school had a PTA. The president, who was in her second year and at the end of her term limit according to the PTA bylaws, called a special meeting (not announced to the membership) in June, at which only the executive board was present. At that meeting, she dissolved the PTA and turned the organization into a PTO, installing herself as president and the rest of the board in their positions for another year. She also wrote and "adopted" PTO bylaws that excluded almost all membership participation (all decisions were made by the executive board).

When some outside members learned of this development (at the beginning of the school year), we were very upset, and met with the principal to air our complaints. He basically stood by the president, allowing her to remain in office and allowing the orgainization to remain a PTO at least for the year. He did compromise by saying that, in Feburary, the organization will hold a special meeting with presentations from the PTA as well as those interested in keeping it a PTO and allow the members to vote on whether to remain a PTO or return to PTA.

In the meantime, he also allowed for the formation of a bylaws committee (all executive board members, and three "complaining" mothers). At the bylaws committee meeting, the three outsiders were informed that the president had engaged a lawyer to put the necessary "legal jargon" in the bylaws. Although we thought this was unnecessary, since the necessary language was in our old PTA bylaws, no one really discussed this. Since the lawyer has not completed work on the bylaws, we are operating under the ones the president wrote until January (no December meeting -- people are too busy.)

At our second PTO meeting of the year last night, we were presented with a budget. In it was an item "PTO Attorneys Fees -- $3750." The president had retained a lawyer for almost $4000 without consulting with any of the membership. She had decided to incorporate the PTO (without discussing this with the membership), even though there is the strong possibility that next year we will return to PTA. The principal, who was at the meeting, just sat there as if this was all fine with him.

The craziest part of all of this is that the reason (supposedly) we changed from PTA to PTO was to save the half of the dues money that went to the State and National PTA. We collected $2200 in dues, saved $1100 by not having to pay dues to PTA, and then spent $3750 on legal fees!

We are putting together a letter to the principal expressing our dissatisfaction with this situation, and getting as many parents to sign it as possible. Can anyone think of anything else we can do to get this woman under control? Until we get new bylaws, she can pretty much do whatever she wants with the organization and the money, and seems to have the principal's blessing.