secretary/treasurer or secretary, and treasurer?

[Guest We need help]

We had a separate treasurer and secretary positions in the board. We had two of our board members, one being the treasurer move across the US last May. The secretary decided we could take a vote and move the treasurer and secretary to one person, this was done late July.

We now have a CPA on our board and would like to make her the treasurer and the secretary would remain the current secretary. Now we thought we could vote and change things back well no that is not the case according to the current treasurer/secretary. Now the bylaw a need to be rewritten to accommodate the two separate positions.

Why was it so easy to vote and make two positions inti one person, but can not switch things back without changing the bylaws? Also was told it was an legal vote, which makes the two jobs go back to being two separate people.

Really need some help and guideness on this issue. Just getting into reading and understanding Roberts Rules.

Thank you for your time!

[Timothy]

Read your bylaws. If the bylaws specify the secretary and treasurer positions separately, then you have two separate positions that are currently held by one person. If the bylaws specify it as one position, then you have one position.

[Guest willbander]

In our non-profit we worded the bylaws to say that one person 'may' hold both positions as determined by their qualifications and election to the board.  That way if  "A" were an accountant and "B" were a legal secretary and they wanted to contribute their expertise they would plug in to the position upon nomination & election to the position.  If we had "C" who was experienced at both keeping minutes and financials and no one else were nominated for the individual positions then "C" would become Secretary/Treasurer.

[Timothy]

In our non-profit we worded the bylaws to say that one person 'may' hold both positions as determined by their qualifications and election to the board.  That way if  "A" were an accountant and "B" were a legal secretary and they wanted to contribute their expertise they would plug in to the position upon nomination & election to the position.  If we had "C" who was experienced at both keeping minutes and financials and no one else were nominated for the individual positions then "C" would become Secretary/Treasurer.

 

Sounds confusing and unnecessary, since the default is that one person can be elected to two positions. In any case, someone currently holds position in question, so they must be removed from the position before someone else can me placed in it. If the bylaws make this a Secretary/Treasurer position because one person holds it, it seems like the person will have to be removed from the Secretary/Treasurer position and then an election must be held for both the Secretary and the Treasurer positions. If it were a case of one person holding two positions, then it wouldn't be necessary to remove them from the secretary position.

[Edgar Guest]

Why was it so easy to vote and make two positions into one person, but can not switch things back without changing the bylaws?

 

Assuming the bylaws designate a separate secretary and treasurer, you didn't have to change the bylaws to elect the same person to both positions and you don't have to change the bylaws to elect two different people to the two positions.

 

Only if your bylaws designate a combined office of secretary-treasurer would you have a problem.

 

The secretary decided we could take a vote and move the treasurer and secretary to one person, this was done late July.

If you mean you voted to elect the same person to both offices, that's fine. If you think you changed the separate offices of secretary and treasurer to the single office of secretary-treasurer, you didn't. You'd have to amend the bylaws to do that.

[Gary Novosielski]

We had a separate treasurer and secretary positions in the board. We had two of our board members, one being the treasurer move across the US last May. The secretary decided we could take a vote and move the treasurer and secretary to one person, this was done late July.

We now have a CPA on our board and would like to make her the treasurer and the secretary would remain the current secretary. Now we thought we could vote and change things back well no that is not the case according to the current treasurer/secretary. Now the bylaw a need to be rewritten to accommodate the two separate positions.

Why was it so easy to vote and make two positions inti one person, but can not switch things back without changing the bylaws? Also was told it was an legal vote, which makes the two jobs go back to being two separate people.

Really need some help and guideness on this issue. Just getting into reading and understanding Roberts Rules.

Thank you for your time!

 

The procedure to change the bylaws is probably contained in the bylaws themselves.   If they were "easily" changed before, then perhaps that procedure was not followed and that change is null and void.  It is not likely that a simple main motion was enough to properly amend the bylaws.  

 

What probably happened is that the secretary was appointed to fill the vacancy left in the office of treasurer.    There's nothing wrong with that as far as RONR is concerned, but unless the bylaws were amended back then, there still exist two separate offices that have both been held by the same person.  When the terms of office expire (or sooner in special cases) you could easily elect two different people to fill the two offices.

 

If that truly is what happened, there would be no need to amend the bylaws at this point because they were never changed to begin with.