because we had a problem last year where a vote was brought up at a meeting with no advance notice, the group asking for the money brought in all their parents, who never attend any PTO meetings and got the vote to pass in their favor for $600

Maybe a good amendment to the bylaws would be "that any non-budgeted expense over $X amount must be presented with 30 days prior notice to the membership" otherwise, as members (wether they have attended meetings or not), they are entitled to the same voting priviledges that anyone else has. Also, depending on your president and his/her knowledge of parlimentary procedure, you could have the motion tabled until the next month's meeting "pending more information" OR if the $ was only for a select group of kids, could kill the motion altogether by the fact that it didn't fit in with the purposes/mission as stated in you articles.(if in fact it didn't)

. Later after the meeting when the general membership found out there was an uproar.

Where were they? Remind them if they had attended, the vote could have gone the other way.

I don't mean to sound like a bioch, but I think you got a good taste of democracy in action, and maybe a little insurrection too. My personal opinion is still that any large expenses should be voted on by the general membership and maybe as I state above, amend the bylaws to give that 30 notice. Good Luck [img]smile.gif[/img]

Our general membership meets every month. Our budget covers almost everything, but sometimes things do come up not planned for. We are thinking of putting the final approval in the hands of the BOD because we had a problem last year where a vote was brought up at a meeting with no advance notice, the group asking for the money brought in all their parents, who never attend any PTO meetings and got the vote to pass in their favor for $600. Later after the meeting when the general membership found out there was an uproar. So we are thinking of making any amounts over $500 would need approval from the BOD. In the last 2 years this has only come up once. In the last year we have only had to vote on distribution of money about 5 times total. EVerything us was in the budget.

Any other thoughts???

The answer would depend on how often your group meets. Our standing rules state that the Ex Committee may approve purchases up to $250 between monthly meetings. Anything above that amount must be voted on by the general membership. We rarely have to do this as we have a good budget in place and committee chairs know what they have to work with. I do believe that any large purchases should be voted on by the membership to allow for maximum input. That being said, if your general membership only meets once or twice during the year with most decisions being made at the board level that amount should probably be more. But still, I think any big non-budgeted purchases should go before the membership. I say this because we all know how hard it is to actually get parents to actively particpate at meetings and by taking major decision making power out of their hands, they may feel that their voice and vote doesn't really count for anything. Hope this helps. [img]smile.gif[/img]

We are in the process of amending our bylaws. I am curious how many of your bylaws have the Board of Directors making final decisions on allocating funds? We are considering making requests over $500 a Board of Directors decision. Anything under that amount would be open to the general membership. The Board of Directors is made up of the four elected officers, a teacher rep, the principal and a chair from each of the committees (that is both fundraising and social event committees). Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks!!