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We keep you informed throughout the year with poignant posts and informative articles.
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BLOG
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We keep you informed throughout the year with poignant posts and informative articles.
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Parents, teachers, students, and staff - we need to be frank about the state of the ME PTSA. The organization is not in sustainable health.
When this year’s Executive Board took office last July, our Treasurer soon realized that the finances were not in good standing, with a lack of financial reports and receipts, and failure to file taxes for the 2016-2017 school year. Our President and Treasurer spent considerable time over the summer and into the school year working to investigate and resolve the problem, with the advisement of our WA State PTA Regional Director. We addressed this at the first meeting in September. We have been working to increase transparency and implement correct procedures in a number of areas, including the budget and financial transactions, which is necessary to maintain our status as a non-profit organization. This includes requiring prior approval for committee spending as well as requiring receipts for reimbursements and teacher grants. Throughout this year, it has become clear that the budget that was approved in September did not accurately reflect the ME PTSA spending commitments. We are so grateful for the financial support we received during this year’s fundraiser. Unfortunately, this year’s totals from our Invest In Kindness campaign came in nearly $11,000 short of our fundraising goal. At the beginning of the year, we had identified a budget surplus carried over from previous years that we anticipated needing to spend during this school year in order to maintain our tax filing status. We solicited and received several proposals to spend this surplus on Special Projects that would benefit the entire school population. We have postponed putting these proposals to a vote until the newly formed Budget Committee can advise on next year’s budget. However, the Executive Board cannot vote on any agenda items, including amending the budget or approving Special Project spending on our own. A quorum of 10 PTSA members is required to hold a vote at a General Meeting. At many of our meetings this year, we have not had enough members in attendance to hold a vote. Additionally, throughout this year, this Executive Board has come to realize that we did not receive the full scope of information we need to perform our individual and collective duties. We don’t have all the details we need about the various committees and events, and are finding that we cannot adequately plan, budget for, and oversee those functions. We are extremely thankful for everyone who has volunteered their time and energy to help us this year. But this year, as in years past, we have struggled to recruit enough volunteers to fully support our events and committees. Facing both a lack of funding and volunteerism, we are looking at ways to reduce our activities and spending commitments. We are also strategizing ways to better engage our school community. We hope to secure as many 2019-2020 Committee Chairs and members as possible before the end of the school year, and to connect any available volunteers to those committees. This is especially crucial for our Fundraising Committee and the Halloween Committee, events that need to happen early in the school year. We hope to harness the excitement of a new school year and connect volunteers to opportunities as soon as possible in September. We are sending this letter in the hopes that this will encourage your participation. We have many ideas to support the students and teachers at ME with the PTSA’s existing and potential new programs and grants; however, the Board cannot do it alone. We recognize that families are busy and have many commitments for their children, so we would like encourage you to keep up with what is happening with the ME PTSA through our weekly email, website, and Facebook posts. We are reaching out because we want to keep the PTSA functioning at its current levels. We hope that many of you will be able to help us out with our remaining activities for the year, such as the Carnival and Book Fair, and then continue to help into the 2019-2020 school year. Sincerely, Rhonda Frans, Co-President, and parent of a 3rd grader Brennan Elston, Co-President, and parent of a 2nd grader Colleen Cook, Vice President of Membership, and parent of a 2nd grader Erin Senge, Vice President of Communications, and parent of a Kindergartener and 3rd grader Kim Grady, Secretary, and parent of a 2nd grader Karen Siscel Smith, Treasurer, and parent of a 3rd grader |
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April 2024
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