Reports: eVote 2009 | Minister Lauds College Accomplishments | Registrar Brian McGowan Announces His Retirement | Council Meeting | Council Approves Professional Designation for Teachers | Council Sets Budget for 2009 | College Sets Annual Fee for Next Three Years | New Council Members | Qualifications Renamed or Discontinued | Regulation Changes Facilitate Hiring of Supervisory Officers | Minimizing Barriers to Entry | Atkinson Scholar Update | Investigations | Dispute Resolution | Hearings
Member fee

College sets annual fee for next three years

College Council approved an increase in the annual membership fee for 2009 at its September meeting. The annual fee, which is tax deductible, will rise from $104 to $120 beginning January 1.

“Demands have increased significantly,” said Council Chair Don Cattani. “When Council first set the fee at $104 in 2002, we had 98 investigation cases open. Today there are 250. In 2002 we were adding approximately 22,000 Additional Qualifications to our members’ certificates each year. Now it’s 33,000 or more.”

A number of other activities have contributed to the need for a higher fee, said the Chair:

  • a higher volume of teacher education programs requiring College accreditation
  • the need to improve access to the profession for internationally educated teachers
  • the need to meet requirements of national and international agreements on labour mobility.

Allowing for inflation, the current $104 fee, which was set in 2002, would be the equivalent of $120 in 2009 dollars.

“Inflation increased every year while our fee remained unchanged. We ran a deficit in 2008 of about $6 per member and were able to balance the books only because we could draw on the reserves we had set aside to keep fees stable,” said Cattani. “Each year we add about 12,000 more members whose annual fee no longer covers the cost of College activities.

“The minimum fee we can set and be sure of sufficient reserves to carry out our responsibilities and handle any unforeseen expenses is $120.”

Council policy is to maintain the fee at the same level for at least three years and set aside any surplus or unforeseen income to a reserve fund for fee stability.

“Council’s multi-year planning benefits members, who get continuous improvement in service without yearly increases in their fee,” said Registrar Brian McGowan. “It also creates predictability in budgeting that allows us to work in the most cost-effective way possible.”

“Even with the fee increase,” said Cattani, “members of the teaching profession will continue to pay the lowest fee among self-regulating professionals in the province.”

To learn more, see a breakdown of your fee and how it supports College activities and a chart of annual fees paid by Ontario’s self-regulating professions.
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