Fiduciary governance for retirement plan committees

Optimizing Foundations helps retirement plan committees run the way the law expects them to: with a charter, a calendar, documented decisions and a record that shows the process behind each one. The work combines governance advice with the firm's fiduciary governance platform, which holds the committee's calendar, minutes, decision logs and documents in one place.

What is included

• Governance review. The committee's charter, membership, delegation and insurance, the plan documents and investment policy statement, and the existing record, with findings and a prioritized list of gaps.
• Annual calendar. The decisions and reviews the committee should make each year, from fee benchmarking and investment reviews to the compliance deadlines on the firm's resources page, scheduled across the meetings.
• Decision records. Templates and minutes that record what was considered, what was decided and why, in the form a court or regulator would expect to see.
• Fiduciary training. A short session for new committee members on their duties under ERISA or state law, repeated annually.
• Platform. The firm's governance platform keeps the calendar, documents, minutes and decision logs together, with reminders for upcoming items.

Why it matters

Claims against plan fiduciaries turn on process, not outcome. A committee that reviewed fees, considered alternatives and recorded its reasoning is in a different position from one that cannot show what it did. The firm's article on retirement plan governance covers what happens between committee meetings.

Common questions

We already have an investment advisor. What does this add? The advisor covers the investments. Governance covers everything the committee is responsible for, including the advisor's own selection and monitoring, plan administration, fees and the record of all of it.

Does this apply to public plans? Yes. Public plan boards operate under state fiduciary law rather than ERISA, with similar duties and similar expectations of documentation.

Every deliverable described here is reviewed by a second credentialed actuary before delivery. This page is general information about the firm's services and is not advice for any specific plan.