Areas of Agreement

• It was decided that the trainout fund should have the right to claim bonds
• Participants in TCAF will also be required to have a small bond in place
• The fund should cover all courses and certificate programs from registered schools that are 12 weeks in length in any 20-week period.
• The idea that if the institution is covered, then the students are covered as long as they are registered will be negotiated with HRDC.
• Private universities may be welcomed once their structure is understood.
• If an institution is an on-line trainer then only on-line students in Ontario would be able to access the fund – Not students from outside Ontario.
• All PCC's in good standing with the Government should be able to participate in the fund.
• If someone from the group does not show for three meetings in a row – then they cannot be on the committee.

Decisions Yet to be Made

• The appropriate premium rate
• How to spend marketing money
• Definition of administration costs

Decisions Deferred to Board

• Dealing with a PCC’s that have accessed the fund – should they pay all the money back or have an increased premium rate?

• TCAF can make claims against bonds – clause on enrollment contract
• Reduce 2 year waiting period for bond claims
• Consider self-bonding
• Trade-off audited or any other financials in lieu of Bonding’s 3^rd party check
• +50% bond for 1-5 years
• Intelligent Marketing
• Rates at 0.15 %, 0.2%, and 0.25%
• Government-forced closures
• Update registration table from PVS
• SWAT team nominated – upto 2 members from non-OACC Board
• Deputy to appoint government contact
• Assurance fund covers all programs (diploma & certificate) – institution covered

Tour of campus, coffee and donuts

Review of TCAF website
All areas of agreement that are reached by the committee wil be posted on the TCAF web site and all PCC's will be notified of the posting so they can review and comment.

Review of last agenda and timelines:

• Main Committee meeting January 29, 2002
• TCAF Sub Committees
• Develop Report to OACC Board March 25, 2002
• PCC/MTCU Working Group April 10, 2002
• OACC Board Meet May 6, 2002
• PCC/MTCU Working Group May 22, 2002
• AGM in Toronto May 29, 2002

Frank asked for comments from group. George Hood commented that it has been to PCC/MTCU Working Group and now government wants us to finalize things and bring forth proposal.

• Review of TICO (Travel Industry Council of Ontario) growth and compensation fund level
• The growth rate from 1996 to 2001 will be determined.
• Frank pointed out that TCAF will be separate from OACC. In other words, schools will not have to be a member of OACC to belong to TCAF
• Frank noted that when the government operated the travel industry fund, they paid out huge claims and went after the industry to rebuild the fund after the fact, but when TICO took over they managed it much better.
• Review of Bonding – Pro’s and Con’s
• Agreed not to have subcommittees because the group was too small
• Frank said that it is important to show how current bond system works. Hartley Nichol asked if TCAF would be able to access the "bond".
• Max Lacob stated that it is the student who triggers the bond.
• Franks said that a student can sign their claim to a bond to a company that does the train out for them.
• It was decided that the trainout fund should have the right to claim bonds.
• TCAF can make claims against bonds (clause on enrollment contract).
• Deputy Minister in favour of Bond elimination and TCAF
• Deputy Minister wants students protected
• It was decided that the Bond company (GCNA) would be invited for discussion on another date.
• Les Szabo recommended that TCAF should develop a clear procedure to discourage owners from walking away. He suggested the requirement of a bond of $20,000 to $30,000 as well as TCAF.
• Frank noted that the length of time of 2 years to access TCAF should discourage claims.
• Les Szabo said there needs to be an encouragement for students to choose a train out rather than make a claim against TCAF.
• Frank said we need to cover "big picture". (I think this means that the outer limits of TCAF should be large enough to cover the bankruptcy of a large school such as CDI).
• Frank asked the group whether we should have a bond as well.
• George Hood said no, that the bond system is difficult and doesn’t work.
• There was a suggestion that TCAF self insure rather than schools buy bonds and pay premiums to TCAF.
• A discussion arose on whether or not we should have bonding or
  • -3^rd party endorsement
  • -self-bonding
  • -trade-off audited or any other financials in lieu of Bonding’s 3^rd party check 

• It was decided that participants in TCAF will also be required to have a small bond in place.
• Paul Kitchin suggested that a good trade off would be to have the government stop collecting audited financial statements.

There is currently $20,000/$30,000 minimum on bonding based on the age of the institution. Schools that are less than 6 years old will have a $30,000 minimum.

Review of bond rates.
There will be another row added by Frank to the Bond Table which will apply to schools with an annual gross tuition of $10,000,001 and over.

• Paul Kitchin said that if a bond was in place it would serve as the third party scrutineer.
• Frank added that a bond would cause a small school to close down quietly.
• Max Lacob said we need to understand who we are doing TCAF for – is it the schools, the government or the students.
• Frank said it was a combination of the three.
• Hartley Nichol said that a bond is a negotiation tool that will help us get the trade off of no financial statements.

Request that the Government "backstop" the fund in the ramp-up stage and if it should run out of funds on a particular trainout.

Marketing

• A logo or slogan must be decided on. One suggestion by Frank was "Your Investment is Protected at this Institution". It was mentioned that some students may not realize that it is possible for a PVS to close down and may see this as a threat.

Intelligent Marketing

• Hartley and others thought marketing TCAF to HRDC counsellores could be beneficial if done properly (i.e. only send clients to PCC's)
• Hartley recommended something like "TQA – Total Quality Assurance".
• Max asked if the rate of 0.15% being used to determine the TCAF premium rate was high enough. Frank answered making the point that we may not want the fund to grow too fast as it may encourage the Government to close down schools because there is student protection in place. The ensuing discussion did not achieve aany agreement about using the of 0.15%.
• Frank also covered the concept that TCAF may want to raise $160,000 in addition to the training completion funds in order to cover administration and marketing costs.

Break for lunch

• Jim Sheehan joins the discussion.
• Government-forced Closures.
• Continue talks about TCAF premium rates.
• TCAF Premium rates – cost for Assurance, administration, and marketing were discussed.
• New calculations will be done at 0.15%, 0.20%, and 0.25%
• Frank said we need to find the level of bond that the government will accept for trade off situation such as No audited Financial Statements.
• From the school perspective the level of TCAF premium is connected to the "size" of the trade-offs that the industry gets from the Government.
• Since the bonding numbers we have been using are one year old, Frank agreed to get a refreshed breakdown on bonding levels from the PVS Unit at the Ministry.

• Governance (TCAF Structure)
• Suggestion of an administrative board to be elected to TCAF. Recommendation that this board consist of up five (5) OACC Members with a minimum of three (3) and up to two (2) non-OACC Members with a minimum of one (1).
• Deputy to appoint government contact
• A TCAF budget will be prepared for the OACC AGM in May.
• TCAF should be a non-profit organization
• The board should be comprised of unpaid volunteers
• TCAF fees will be determined by the board in order to maintain the fund viability for its
• soul purpose
• The fund will not have a pre-determined cap
• Any training completion plan should fully utilize any outstanding revenues to come in from students or their funders, and minimize the cost of any on-going expenses.
• Board composition is 3 to 5 OACC members, 1 to 2 non-OACC members, and up to 2 non-PCC sector people
• PCC sector Board members to be elected by TCAF members
• Non-sector Board members to be appointed by the elected PCC sector board members
• There will be no student/graduate seats on the Board
• Fiscal year will run from April 1 to March 31
• 1, 2, 3-year terms – intent is to partially rotate the board
• Suggestion of swat team to be elected to TCAF. My understanding of this board is that it would go into a school at the time of bankruptcy and pull everything together and act as a liaison between Ministry, train out schools and students.
• TCAF will appoint a swat team of training completion experts to draw upon on a case by case basis to develop the most appropriate training completion plan within two weeks of a school closing

• Who participates in TCAF?
• If a school accesses fund when it goes under and then resurfaces as a PCC do we let them back in to the TCAF and what should the criteria be?
• Some felt that PCC can only come back if they have paid all the money back, others felt that the premium rates should increase.
• This is an idea for future consideration and will be deferred for now.

• A discussion arose about how to charge the fees and register which students are covered once fees are submitted.
• Does TCAF collect fees monthly for each new registrant that month?
• Does TCAF collect fees on year in advance based on most current revenuestuition ? Should students receive an Assurance certificate?
• Without an on-going registry of students what do you do at the time of closing?
• Do you simply post a sign on the door informing students to call a telephone number and prove that they are a student in need of training completion assistance?
• How does TCAF verify that the correct fees are being paid?
• Jim Sheehan agreed to check with other funds to see how they handle this issue. Jim will also look into the issue of restricting how much tuition a school can collect up front.

Meeting adjourned.

Next Meetings

• February 21, 2002 at 10:00 a.m. at triOS’ Rapistan campus
• March 21, 2002 at 10:00 a.m. at triOS’ Rapistan campus