No officer is above the Bylaws and Standing Rules of the organization. Do you require 2 signatures on every check and/or 2 approvals on every reimbursement request? If not, maybe that would have kept her from overspending. If so, who also authorized her spending?
Can you really use the extra items for another project this year? Was she being careless with the PTO's money or did she actually plan to allocate the excess cost to some other account? Sounds like you have a procedure in place for ammending a budget, and she ignored the procedure. She is going to have to explain the overrun at her monthly treasurer's report, I assume. Maybe that embarassment would be enough consequence. I don't think I would "fire" her -- yet -- but I would keep a close eye on any other committee she chairs (this is a valid argument and maybe a necessary Bylaw to restrict the Treasurer from chairing a committee that involves money.) Hmmmmm, I might suggest that one to our own Bylaws committee...
I just noticed the title of your post. Remind your Treasurer that the job does not come with "privileges", it comes with "responsibilities".
THE STORY - Our treasurer chaired the fall harvest with a budget of $350.00 and instead spent $550.00. If anyone else had chaired the event, they would have had to get approval for the extra expenses during a PTO meeting first. Because she had the checkbook, she just went out and spent it and is using the excuse that the event didn't use all the Pizzas or all the crafts, etc. and is trying to say she only used $300.00 of her spendings and therefore respected her budget (duh). As VP my responsibility is to oversee the work that our committees do, in this case, all the decisions made were hers and not the committees (a whole nother story). She decided to purchase a single decoration which she told me was about $20.00 and it turns out it was actually $40.00 even though she knew we already had all the decoration needed in storage.
THE PROBLEM - What would you do if your treasurer decided to completely disregard budget guidelines (set in the bylaws and approved by all who attend the meeting)? :eek:
