Everyone makes mistakes once in a while. I know my bank has a policy of allowing 1 bad check per year free per customer, mistakes do happen after all... from being a transposed number, lack of communication between people on the account, to failure to record something. They happen...
That being said, since it seems to be more then a "one time" issue from the question then I would follow the same procedure that I would follow with anyone writing a bad check. If you have a bad check policy established then you need to stick with it no matter if she is the PTO president, principal or parent. If you deviate from that then you are setting a precedent that someone else in the future could use as a bargaining chip.
If you don't have a policy I would establish one and have the executive committee meet with her about the issue, being sure to record minutes, stipulate that she is not allowed to write any more checks to the PTO, needs to cover any costs the PTO incurred due to her check not clearing and would even go as far as to state that if it does happen again (which is shouldn't with the other items in place) then you will ask for a vote to have her removed.
May seem harsh but the kid's and families work to hard for the fund raisers to find out on the back side that their own PTO president wasn't actually supporting them and in a way committing theft/fraud.
I feel that she should not be allowed to handle anymore financial transactions for the group at the very least. Obviously she is not capable of handling those duties in a responsible fashion. Think of how these bounced checks reflect on your group with the businesses at which she wrote them!
We had a board member who wrote bad checks a couple of times. It was decided that for the rest of the school year that person would have to pay cash and a cash receipt issued. It was decided that no one else needed to know at this time except the treasurer and vice president. However, if it happened again it would be made know to all board members and all finance members who receive checks.
Suzie is looking for suggestions on how to deal with a president writing bad checks. She posted this question on our article about
dealing with bad checks
. I'm reposting here for discussion and I'll let Suzie know where to find this thread.
How do other parent groups deal with an officer writing bad checks? This year our president has writeen bad checks on more then one occasion. This information isn't reflected in our budget anywhere and the president feels that no one should know except for the treasurer. Does anyone have any suggestions?
