Frequently Asked Questions for Prospective Trust Beneficiaries

What is PLAN of PA’s experience in serving as trustees for special needs trusts?
PLAN of PA was started by families in 1989. These families all had a loved one with a Special Needs Trust and wanted to select a trustee that was not only a fiduciary expert, managing the financial aspects of the Special Needs Trust, but one who was also rooted in human service principles and engaged with government service providers.

What is your fee schedule?
Printable Trust Services Fee Schedule here

How are your fees typically paid? 
We bill on a quarterly basis. In order to account for market fluctuation, we take bill on the average asset level within that quarter. This means we average the asset level in the beginning and end of quarter and assess our fees in accordance with that average. This way if the market goes up or down dramatically, we assess a more balanced fee.

Do your fees begin only when the trust is funded? 
Yes, however, for a future funded trust we much prefer to meet with the person and his or her support system to develop a trust plan. This trust plan gathers all demographic information including important persons, medical, psychological and legal information. We do this because when a future trust funds, those who know the person best, and have been his or her primary support are typically no longer available or are significantly compromised. Typically, this change in capacity  is why the trust is funding. Therefore, we wish to speak with those persons now so that we know their intentions for setting up the trust. We want these persons perspectives, knowledge and hopes for the beneficiary so that we can better serve that person when the time should come. We also like to meet periodically so that we can know of important changes as the years go by. There is a one-time fee for the Initial Trust Plan of $750. We wish to spend time getting to know the person and his or her situation and remain in contact periodically. We believe this will make us more prepared to serve at the time the trust funds.

How often in the past five years have you changed your fees?
Our trust fees have only lowered in the past 5 years. We hope to lower them yet again as we grow our mission and outreach.

What is the process you use when the beneficiary need funds from the trust?
We have a disbursement request form that the person can fill out. It is very simple. We sometimes need to assist the person in completing that form. Expenditures that will be more than $5,000 or more than 5% of the total value of the trust go to the Trust Advisory Committee for review. This committee is comprised of our Executive Director and several legal and financial professionals in the community who are dedicated to our mission and services. 

Is there a person that I can talk to if I have any questions?
Typically Abby Grasso, Executive Director, and/or members of the Trust Services team meet with families for an introductory meeting.

How are the taxes related to the trust assets handled? 
For the past decade we have used an accounting firm, Woolard, Krajnik, Masciangelo, LLP to complete the taxes. They engage with our team to gather all the appropriate information and provide a draft of the tax forms for each trust. Our Trust Officer is at point to review their work. This firm retains PLAN of PA's trust tax business due to their quality of work and their interest in giving each trust a reasonable fee. Most trusts are assessed a $250 fee on average for their work provided.

What are the processes and procedures for investing the trust assets?
We engage GSL & Associates to invest our trust assets. GSL & Associates is a team within Merrill Lynch and Bank of America. They have dedicated themselves to serving families with a family member with a Special Needs Trust. 2 years ago we conducted an RFP to determine the best investor for our beneficiaries. GSL won and continues to win the business as they are experts not only in financial matters, but also understand families like yours and what you need. We believe they give our trust beneficiaries the highest level of service and lowest price point.

What do you do to become more familiar withe the beneficiary?
We meet at least annually once the trust has funded. We may assign a Care Manager for the person if there are goals in the area of housing, benefits, health & wellness, personal finance management, social interaction or pursuit of an education or work (volunteer or paid position).

Do you want me to complete a letter of intent?
You certainly can do that. We will honor that letter to the fullest extent the regulations and trust documents allow. For PLAN of PA, we consider our Trust plan to serve the same purpose as a letter of intent. 

Do you offer any other services in addition to being the trustee?
Care Management and Representative Payee Services. Representative Payee Services are regulated to approximately $52 a month and are generally paid for out of the amount the person receives from Social Security. Care Management is a fee for service arrangement. Trustees pay by the hour for our Care Managers to work with them to increase their access to public benefits, often saving assets in the trust. We prefer to use the services which are eligible to trustees first, such as waivers and county care managers. Only when these services fall consistently short of the persons needs or are the person is ineligible do we opt to provide those services through PLAN of PA. There are some families who prefer to pay for our services then use the county services as they experience our services as superior and therefore wish to pay for them. In general, we prefer to use the free services whenever possible prior to engaging our care management. We feel this preserves the assets in the trust.

How are those services paid for? 
They can be paid for privately (family) or through the trust. On occasion we have used Representative Payee funds to pay for Care Management.

Can I take advantage of those services before the trust is funded? 
Yes, we can set up a separate contract for Care Management prior to the Trust funding. If you have already set up a trust with us and paid the trust fee, we can negotiate a lower rate for the development of a Care Management plan.