The motivation behind the Prez and Principal's decision could be that this person has "only" been indicted not convicted of the crime. Remember: presumed innocent until proven guilty. If they would force this person to resign based only on the indictment it could leave them open to a lawsuit by this person. I'm not saying I would be comfortable with your current situation either especially based on what this person is charged with doing, but this could explain why the decision was made to keep her on in her chairperson position.
Like PresidentJim says, I would tighten up your money handling requirements and make sure this person doesn't handle any funds until this whole situation has been resolved.
Truthfully, I can't believe that someone facing a trial of this nature would want to stay in their position. I would think they would want to spend their time focusing on their case and their family.
I am wondering about the motivation of the President and the Principal. Why are they so adamant about this person continuing their role?
It does come down to this...
Normally, the primary person responsible for the checkbook and funds is the Treasurer. The only place where the Fundraising Coordinator could try to take advantage would be with cash submissions. IMO there are two viable ways to handle this, and both involve the Treasurer.
One idea would be to have the Treasurer on hand when the order payments are collected. If that is not possible then she should obtain all checks and cash payments, as well as a copy of all orders, from the Fundraising Coordinator as soon as possible once they are collected. This way the Treasurer can at least perform a mini-audit on the fundraiser to see if everything matches up...
The other would be to make it a policy that only checks or money orders, made out to the PTO, would be accepted.
I can't see how the Fundraising Coordinator could take advantage of collected checks.
The ONLY thing that I can think of to do here, and it would absolutely suck, would be for you and the other parents who are not on the board to sit down with the principal and president and explain to them that unless this woman is removed from any contact with money or assets until her case is resolved (and permanently if she is found guilty) that you will all be resigning and refusing to take part in any fundraising activities for the school, and that you will be actively speaking to all of the other parents in the school to encourage them to do the same, along with notifying your local school board and the local news outlets that the two of them are continuing to allow her to act as Fundraising Chair. The down side to this is that it could effectively halt your organization for quite a period of time if they aren't convinced. However, your principal, at least, may be reluctant to take the kind of flack associated with a situation like this, especially if it puts a halt to funding from the parents. Point out to the two of them that while you understand and agree that she is innocent until proven guilty that even the appearance of possible impropriety casts such a pall on an organization that you fear ever regaining your reputation if she is convicted and it gets out that your organization allowed her to continue in this vein. You might also mention that if this person really cared about the school at all she would willingly resign pending the favorable outcome of her case, and that the very fact that she refuses is in itself concerning.
But, you all have to be willing to follow through on your ultimatum. Otherwise there is no point in even meeting with them.
Another variation on this might be to have parents call the principal and president en masse and demand an immediate public meeting to discuss this issue. Perhaps if your chair is forced to very publically explain why she refuses to resign, and your president and principal are forced to explain why they are okay with this in public, the situation might quickly resolve itself. My experience has been that in most cases enough angry parents can convince a principal to do nearly anything. Without reading your bylaws I can't be certain of anything, but if members have voting rights then they most likely have the right to make a motion. If that's the case, what would happen if a member stood up at a meeting and moved that the chairperson be removed, got a second, and received a majority of votes in favor of the motion? Do your bylaws give your president the ability to override a vote? Do your bylaws dictate who has the ability to call a meeting for that matter? If they don't specify then most likely any member of the board or general membership would have the ability.
Those are honestly the only two avenues I can think of, and I don't know how much help it really is.
Reader's Digest Version of this mess: Fundraising Chair is indicted felon - theft of money from a different association. PTO pres and Principal dictating she stay on the Board. (This became public knowledge in the local newspaper shortly after the election). Bylaws are a mess - no insurance - not bonded. Fundraiser started immediately (going on now) and Fundraising chair insisting on doing her job. There are people in the school watching, waiting to sue over this. Our only avenue for correction has been to fix the bylaws. But, bylaws are not enacted until a general PTO vote, and ratified 30 days later. General PTO meeting not even scheduled yet. Won't help us right now. All meetings in the past have been closed door, secret - even elections were closed to just the current board members. Lots of things were done very very wrong.
Any suggestions? What, if anything, can we be sued for? What are the options for those on the board who are trying to do the right thing? If we resign, the corruption continues, so we feel that is not a good option - at least not right now. Can we be sued individually? Collectively as the Board? Help! Anyone got the t-shirt for this one?
