Hampshire College Trustees

“Members' power to elect governing body - the student body elects a student trustee and an alternate. The faculty elects a faculty trustee. The staff elects a staff trustee.”

“Form 990 review - management of the college is responsible for preparing a draft of form 990 with the assistance of an outside public accounting firm. The completed draft of form 990 is provided to the audit and compliance committee of the board of trustees in advance of the filing deadline to enable a review by all members of the committee with senior management and the college's tax advisor from a public accounting firm. All questions and concerns of the audit committee members are addressed and incorporated into form 990 as appropriate. After the audit committee's review, all members of the board of trustees are provided a copy of the completed form 990 in advance of the filing deadline via a dedicated website. After input from the board of trustees and the audit committee has been appropriately addressed, form 990 is filed with the internal revenue service.”

“Form 990 provided to the governing body - the college has distributed form 990 to the full board of trustees with the exception of donors' names and addresses on schedule b. Because of schedule b's private and confidential nature, the board has delegated the authority and responsibility for reviewing that schedule to the audit and compliance committee. As such, we are required to answer "no" to the question on line 11a even though a copy of form 990 (with redacted donors' names and addresses on schedule b) was provided to the trustees.”

“Monitoring and enforcement of conflict policy - the college annually requires disclosures of conflicts of interest through a conflict of interest form. The trustees are emailed the conflict of interest form from the business office via the college's secretary, and the completed forms are returned to the business office. If a completed conflict of interest form discloses a conflict, it is given to the vice president for finance and administration. The vp for finance and administration reviews the forms and then sends them to the audit and compliance committee if the disclosure is something that the committee needs to be aware of. The trustees recuse themselves from voting on matters in which they have a conflict. The minutes of such meeting shall reflect that a disclosure was made, and a trustee who is uncertain whether a conflict of interest may exist in any matter may request the board or committee to resolve the question by majority vote.”

“Compensation review and approval - the executive committee of the board of trustees annually reviews the compensation of the president. The process includes reviewing comparable data to determine appropriate compensation levels. The documented process and decisions made are preserved in human resources. The executive committee is empowered to approve the annual compensation of the president, and the executive committee, or a subset thereof, meets with the president annually for a formal evaluation after receiving input from the full board. The other officers' compensation is reviewed by the president. Comparative salary data as well as proposed salaries are brought by the president to the executive committee for review. The president makes the final salary decisions for all college officers.”

“Availability of documents - the college's by-laws, code of conduct, conflict of interest policy, and financial statements are all available on the college's website: www.hampshire.edu. Form 990 and the audited financial statements are available on the website of the massachusetts attorney general. Form 990 is also available at www.guidestar.org.”