I'd call her and ask her if I could stop by. I'd thank her for all she's done when no one else was willing. I'd admit I may not know what her system is and apologize "If I've messed up her system in any way". I'd tell her I heard from person A that she was interested in resigning. If she said that is true, then I'd accept her resignation. I'd conveniently remember to have paper and pencil handy, to write up a resignation on the spot for her to resign, just to make if official. Then I'd make arrangements to go visit the bank with her and have the checking account transferred to another person's name. Then I'd conduct an audit.
OK, I need your help. Heres the short version and if you need more information let me know. We are a relatively new PTO board (this was our first year) and other than volunteering and helping out over the last couple of years we didn't know a whole lot. We made a few mistakes but nothing earth shattering and all easily fixed. The only person left from the old board was the treasurer who is a senior citizen who hasn't had children at the school in many years, but the old board kept her on. ( I don't know why she was on the board since she is neither a parent of a student or a teacher!) But we choose to let her stay on since we were already overwhelmed by the task that lay in front of us! Let me say without sounding horribly mean and critical, the old board was very difficult to deal with, it was very negative. But parental apathy runs very high at our school and no one was willing to do anything or step in. When we were given the opportunity to step in as the old board stepped down we knew we would have a hard road to travel to try and turn things around. And it has not been easy, it still isn't but I will say that we are getting more volunteers to step up and help than has been seen in many years at our school. It really is turning around. But we still have alot of work to do. This job was really dropped in our laps with zero preperation or training. And the president of the old board still has children at the school so she is still involved but sadly it is often in a negative way. She is also very good friends with the treasurer.
So here is the issue at hand, the treasurer has not been at any but 1 fundraiser this year, she has not handled the money in any way, we (my v.p. and I) have done everything, deposits, written checks done the shopping for all of it etc. (even used our own money when we couldn't get a hold of her for checks, because she always keeps the checkbook with her) We have done our level best to keep things in hand, to not let it get too crazy, to keep track as best we could. Perfect? Heck no!! But we've tried so very hard!! Now we are at the end of the school year and she is screaming that the checkbook isn't balancing. I know what a big deal this is, really I do, and I will own that when it became clear to us that she wasn't going to be a treasurer in a true sense of the word we should have at that moment stepped up and said this wasn't going to work, that we needed to get another parent on board to become our treasurer. One of our mistakes. So with the principals relieved support we will be asking the treasurer to resign. Some points on why this is an issue on how to go about it....
1. The treasurer has told several people (except us) that she is willing to resign, she tells us that we are messing her system up and need to correct it before next school year
2. The treasurer and the old President speak regularly and the old president is telling others at the school that there is a problem with the check book because of us
It has been recommended to us that we send her a certified letter requesting her resignation and the return of the check book within 10 days.
The principal who we have attempted to not involve in this until necessary has already been spoken with by the old pres, and he has made it very clear he is supporting us in this decision.
(Hard as it is to believe this is the short version, sorry!)
So whats your advice on this issue? Is the letter a good idea since talking face to face has not worked thus far?
