Chrystal, are you saying that the board members abstain from voting at a general meeting of the organization? And is that board anything other than the executive officers? I can understand that mentality, and if we are only talking about the executive officers it may be worth having them abstain unless their votes might determine the outcome.

Our "board" is all the committee chairs, plus the executives. At board meetings, they are the only ones who do vote. At unit meetings, if the board didn't vote I'm not sure how many people would be left to vote.

The chair of a meeting is supposed to maintain the appearance of impartiality. For this reason, they should only vote if necessary to break a tie, or if their vote will defeat a motion by creating a tie. Unless of course, you have rules that state otherwise (e.g., in the US Senate the VP is only allowed to vote to break a tie, not to create one [only fair, since the VP is NOT also a senator], however the Senate President Pro-Tem is also a senator and may cast a ballot to create a tie at which point the VP is summoned to break the tie).

Typically our board does not vote, only the membership. If I'm not mistaken according to Robert's Rules the President only votes to break a tie. This has never happened where I have had to break a tie vote though.

If the board doesn't vote...then who does? :confused:

Is there an executive committee, and the board only serves in an advisory role to the executive? I'm just trying to guess here how your group is set up. One thing you will find around here is that almost every group has a "board", but we don't all mean the same thing by that phrase.

As a PTO Board, YOU ARE the elected officials which represent the organization and should be, by all means, doing the voting on any and all PTO matters! Your bylaws should reflect this as well. The organization votes on the budget and elected officers, and then the PTO Board carries out the duties of such. Hope this helps...

I am new to the PTO at out school this year. I was always told that as "Board Members" we do not get a vote on topics that are brought to the table for a vote. This does not make sense as we paid our dues just as all the other PTO members, we just took it a step further and were voted onto thew board. How do other PTO's vote...do the board members vote? There is nothing in our by-laws either way...this information came through our new president (elected 2 years ago) and she was told by the Principal.