Members and employers make decisions together

The CAAT Plan is a jointly sponsored, defined benefit plan – a system that provides responsible, prudent governance shared between employers and members.

Key decisions are made by two groups: the Board of Trustees and the Sponsors’ Committee. Members bring broad, diverse skill sets to the Plan, helping to ensure that all perspectives of issues receive proper consideration.

The Board of Trustees is responsible for day to day administration of the Plan and the management of its investment strategies. The Trustees work together with professional advisors such as actuaries, lawyers and auditors, and Plan staff (a separate administrative group, supervised by the Board through the CEO and Plan Manager).

Membership on the Board of Trustees is split equally between employers (appointed by Colleges Ontario on behalf of the employers) and Plan members (appointed by OPSEU and the administrative association, OCASA). All Trustees have a fiduciary responsibility to represent the best interests of all Plan members – active and retired – not the group that appointed them.

The other governance body is the Sponsors’ Committee. It is appointed by the same groups, and also has an equal number of employer and member representatives. The Committee is responsible for choosing when to file actuarial valuations, setting contribution rates, and making changes to benefits as described in the Plan text. Committee members take the advice of the Board of Trustees into account when making these decisions, but primarily represent the interests of the group that appointed them.

Working together, the Board of Trustees and the Sponsors’ Committee have a common interest: a strong, stable plan. With this in mind, they have at times struck a joint, ad hoc committee, as was done with the Funding Task Force in 2010. Funding is of course one of the key components of Plan management. The Funding Task Force was given a mandate to choose the appropriate action to deal with funding pressures leading up to the valuation of January 1, 2011. The Task Force was composed of members of both the Board of Trustees and the Sponsors’ Committee, along with two past Board members. We reported on the results of their efforts in our last newsletter, which is available here. 

Board and Committee members are not personally enriched by their tenure with the Plan. Employee representatives take time out from their work schedules to prepare for and attend meetings, and receive their regular compensation for doing so. Employer representatives are eligible for modest per diem amounts for their time, along with travel and accommodation expenses. The welfare of the Plan is the key item of importance for Plan governors.

Biographical notes on each of the Plan’s current governors were recently added to the website. You can find those notes about the Board of Trustees here and about the Sponsors' Committee here.