PTO Board Meeting

Tuesday, January 8, 2002

6:00 p.m.

Art Room

Participants

December 4, 2001 Meeting Minutes

Approved.

Treasurer's Report

Krissanne Ellingson shared a Budget Worksheet that showed the ORE PTO's financial status.  Thanks to the recent fundraiser, the PTO is sound financially:  Checking-$11,112.33, Savings-$4,072.29, Certificate of Deposit-$5,104.82

Krissanne asked the PTO Board on how to proceed in collecting unpaid monies from the last fundraiser.  Krissanne said that two individuals owed the PTO a total of $375.00 from bounced checks.  She said she had called all tso individuals and left messages at their homes.  She sent registered letters to each home and had not received a response.

Catherine McKenzie offered to search the Internet and determine what other organizations have done to address bounced checks.  A summary of her findings follows:

I researched various bounced check policies of other PTO's and PTA's using Google.  This is a wide-spread problem.  The solutions fell into a few main categories:

1)  Do nothing.  One PTO person said that bad checks were just the cost of doing business.

2)  Pass on the bank fee to the bad check writer.  (Hmmm, it's hard enough to get them to pay at all.)

3)  Add their own PTO "returned check fee" for the added aggravation they cause.  (see above)

4)  After one or more instances of returned checks, the PTO does not accept checks from that family again.

5)  School holds report card until checks are paid.

6)  School system (I didn't see any PTO's doing this) files charges, puts the check in for collection, and other serious consequences.

7)  Some schools did not accept checks at all unless merchandise could be held until checks clear.

We, as a board, need to decide where we are going to stand on this. 

--Catherine McKenzie, PTO co-vice president

The PTO Board decided to send one more registered letter to each of the three parties. PTO Board members will also try to talk to these individuals separately and try to make arrangements to recover the money.  If, after a reasonable amount of time, these people do not pay the correct amount, the Madison Police Department will be contacted for their input.

The PTO Board noted this was not the first occurrence of a bounced check.  The PTO Board will discuss this issue more in depth at a future board meeting.

Destination Imagination

Catherine McKenzie stated one 4/5 team was formed for Destination Imagination with a younger group possible.  The younger group would not participate in Destination Imagination on March 9 but could gain experience for next year.

Lisa Stec noted that because Destination Imagination occurs on March 9 that the PTO Carnival was moved back to its original date of March 16.

MSCR

Lisa Stec said there could be potentially six after school clubs established after school.  These clubs would start the week of February 9 and finish up a week before spring break.  Some of the possible clubs include: Chess, Cooking, Drill Team, and Stamping.

State Budget

Nanci Kopecky said that it was a critical time regarding the funding of education.  She noted Wisconsin's budgetary problems could make education expendable.  She hoped parents would contact their legislators and support funding for education.  She said that information would be sent home on this education funding concern with the kids on Friday.

Playground

Lisa Stec said the PTO will purchase the Cliff Climber and a Three Ring swing set-up as new equipment for the ORE playground.  Mike Hertting will call the school district and arrange to have this equipment installed.

Charity

Lisa Kornetsky asked if the PTO Board would be interested in participating in a fundraiser with Falk to raise money for UW Oncology.  We agreed that was a good idea.

Website

Ralph Patterson asked if the website should be announced in the Rainbow Review and if the ORE PTO by-laws should be posted on the webpage.  The PTO Board agreed that an announcement of the website should be part of the Rainbow Review.  Ralph will write the article.  The PTO Board also agreed the PTO by-laws should be part of the web-site.  Michael Stone will work on placing the by-laws on the website.

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 7:15 p.m.