Reallocation of Officers

[Guest Ka Seng Lim]

Hello,

I'm part of an organization that follows Parliamentary Procedure. Our officers are the President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, Reporter, Historian, Sergeant at Arms, and Parliamentarian (some of these positions may be specific to our organization). However, one of our officers has resigned and another is in danger of being forced to quit the organization as a whole, therefore giving up his officer position. As a result, we have a plan to reallocate the positions to make everything work. My question is that is there anything in Robert's Rules of Order that prohibits us from doing this?

[Bruce Lages]

RONR does not speak to 'reallocating' officer positions, If by that you mean that you plan to divide up the responsibilities of the departing officers among  those remaining, that can be done, but  it should be only on a temporary basis. If your bylaws specifiy that your organization should have each of those officers, then you really do have an obligation to replace the officers that are or may be leaving. The usual way to do that is by whatever method your bylaws provide for filling vacanices in office. If your bylaws don't specify such a method, then the vacancies are fillled by election or appointment by whatever body elected or appointed those officers initially.

[Richard Brown]

I'm not sure what you mean by "reallocate" positions.  Do you mean to combine some positions?   Unless your bylaws prohibit combining offices, it is permissible.   RONR, page 440.  However, if you are having trouble filling some offices, it  may be wise to amend your bylaws to eliminate or officially combine some offices, such as a secretary/treasurer.

 

If an office becomes vacant due to a resignation or for any any other reason, it creates a vacancy in that office.  The vacancy should be filled in the manner specified in your bylaws for filling vacancies.  If the bylaws are silent on filling vacancies, then RONR provides a  procedure to follow.   Unless your bylaws prohibit it, one of the remaining officers could be elected (or selected) to fill the vacancy.  Some bylaws do prohibit dual office holding.

[Edgar Guest]

I'm not sure what you mean by "reallocate" positions.  Do you mean to combine some positions?   Unless your bylaws prohibit combining offices, it is permissible.   RONR, page 440.

 

Having the same person hold more than one office is not the same thing as "combining offices". If the bylaws call for both a secretary and a treasurer, a person could be elected/appointed to both offices but not to a "combined office" of secretary-treasurer.

[Guest Ka Seng Lim]

To clarify what i mean by reallocate.

The officer that may face dismissal holds the position of Vice-President, and this requires a lot of knowledge about the inner workings of the organization. Since this is the case, electing members who may lack such knowledge could have a detrimental effect on the ability of the organization to conduct business. A fellow officer proposed that we "shuffle" existing officers (ie. promote our secretary to VP and elect a new secretary instead.) is this type of action prohibited by RONR or is it up to the bylaws to make such a determination?

[Edgar Guest]

A fellow officer proposed that we "shuffle" existing officers (ie. promote our secretary to VP and elect a new secretary instead.) is this type of action prohibited by RONR or is it up to the bylaws to make such a determination?

 

There's no "shuffling" and no "reallocation" in RONR-Land. But nothing in RONR would prohibit, for example,the same person from serving as both vice-president and secretary (though it could become a problem if the office of president should become vacant).

[Hieu H. Huynh]

If the question is "Can our officers decide among ourselves which officer roles we want?", then the answer is "No" unless your bylaws give the officers such powers. The answer to what you can do about any vacancies should be in your bylaws.

[Kim Goldsworthy]

To clarify what i mean by reallocate.

The officer that may face dismissal holds the position of Vice-President, and this requires a lot of knowledge about the inner workings of the organization.

Since this is the case, electing members who may lack such knowledge could have a detrimental effect on the ability of the organization to conduct business.

A fellow officer proposed that we "shuffle" existing officers (ie. promote our secretary to VP and elect a new secretary instead.) is this type of action prohibited by RONR or is it up to the bylaws to make such a determination?

Most llikely, it is prohibited by your own bylaws.

 

If (per your bylaws) the general membership elected your VP,

then the general membership fills the vacancy in the office of VP.

 

I assume that your board does not have the authority to fill the position. (Else why would you ask your question here?)

 

***

 

If you wish to comply more-closely with your own rules (and Robert's Rules of Order), then the preferred solution would be:

* Leave the office of VP open

* Re-allocate those VP duties to the other officers, either to a single party (like Secreary), or split the duties logically (like between Sec., Tr., P.).

 

It violates no rule where:

* a duty is allocated to a certain office X,

* and office X is vacant,

* so the organization re-allocates the duty to another party.

 

That is, the organization, as a whole, never loses the ability to do Duty D, just because the party who would have done Duty D is dead or expelled.

 

E.g.,

If your rule were to say, "The Treasurer shall pay the bills,"

and if the Treasurer is dead,

then the organization is under no obligation to let the bills pile up, unpaid,

while a special meeting is frantically being called to hold a by-election to fill the empty office.

 

Instead the organization re-absorbs the duty and re-delegates the duty. -- Until the proper office is filled, and the rule ("Tr. shall pay bills") can be obeyed literally.

[Josh Martin]

To clarify what i mean by reallocate.

The officer that may face dismissal holds the position of Vice-President, and this requires a lot of knowledge about the inner workings of the organization. Since this is the case, electing members who may lack such knowledge could have a detrimental effect on the ability of the organization to conduct business. A fellow officer proposed that we "shuffle" existing officers (ie. promote our secretary to VP and elect a new secretary instead.) is this type of action prohibited by RONR or is it up to the bylaws to make such a determination?

The Secretary may be chosen to fill the vacancy, and if the Secretary subsequently resigns from his current position, there would then be a vacancy in the office of Secretary. How vacancies are filled should be specified in your bylaws. If not, they are filled by the same body which elected the position in the first place.

[Gary Novosielski]

To clarify what i mean by reallocate.

The officer that may face dismissal holds the position of Vice-President, and this requires a lot of knowledge about the inner workings of the organization. Since this is the case, electing members who may lack such knowledge could have a detrimental effect on the ability of the organization to conduct business. A fellow officer proposed that we "shuffle" existing officers (ie. promote our secretary to VP and elect a new secretary instead.) is this type of action prohibited by RONR or is it up to the bylaws to make such a determination?

 

I don't know who "we" is, but the way you decide who is in an office is by election, not by "shuffling".   Who has the power to fill vacancies that occur during an unexpired term of office?    If it's the same "we", then maybe you could arrange for some of the remaining officers to resign and to reappoint them to other offices.  Or maybe not. Much depends on your bylaws.