SteadyState for pension boards
Governance software for pension boards
A pension board's actions are fiduciary decisions, and auditors read them years later. SteadyState locks each approved action the moment the vote closes, attributed to the trustees who voted, inside your retirement system's own Microsoft 365.
A typical retirement system in SteadyState
A nine-member board of trustees – some elected by active and retired members, some appointed, a couple sitting ex officio – meets monthly, with an Investment Committee quarterly and a Benefits and Disability Committee for benefit determinations. Each action is a decision with a category, a vote, and a locked record, and each generates follow-up work with a named owner and a due date.
A year of decisions
6 decisions, oldest first| ID | Decision | State | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| DEC-2026-002 | Adopt the revised statement of investment policy | Approved | 14 Jan |
| DEC-2026-005 | Approve new strategic asset allocation targets | Approved | 11 Feb |
| DEC-2026-009 | Award a core fixed income mandate to the selected manager | Approved | 11 Mar |
| DEC-2026-012 | Adopt actuarial assumptions from the five-year experience study | Approved | 8 Apr |
| DEC-2026-016 | Accept the annual valuation and certify the employer contribution rate | Approved | 13 May |
| DEC-2026-019 | Rule on a disability retirement application, recorded by case number with no medical detail in the decision record | Submitted | 10 Jun |
The problems this solves
Audit findings follow record-keeping
A 2024 audit of a large public retirement system asked for subcommittee minutes and attendance records the system could not readily produce. In Pennsylvania, where the Auditor General audits municipal pension plans receiving state aid, record-keeping findings repeat year after year. SteadyState narrows one part of that: the approval record exists because the vote happened in it. Minutes stay the clerk's job.
Fiduciary decisions age
Benefit determinations, investment actions, and policy changes are read years later, by people who were not in the room. The question is always how it was approved. SteadyState answers with a locked record: each trustee's vote, attributed by name, recorded the moment the vote closed.
How it fits
- Committee and board, separately
- The investment committee and the full board each work in their own workspace, so a committee recommendation and a board approval are each recorded on their own.
- Turnover-proof
- Trustees rotate on schedule, and the register carries the record across every transition. Each new trustee inherits what the board decided and why.
- Records stay in your tenant
- SteadyState installs into your retirement system's own Microsoft 365 environment. There is no new vendor cloud holding your board's records.
What it costs
Nine trustees, an executive director, and the staff who prepare items is 12 to 15 seats – $260 to $300 a month at the public rate of $20 per user per month, with a 10-seat minimum. Each seated user also needs Power Apps licensing from Microsoft, about $5 per user per month. The full math is on the pricing page.
Questions boards ask
- How should a pension board document its votes?
- Each action should show who was eligible, how each trustee voted, and that the record has not changed since. SteadyState records those at the moment the vote closes, and the approved record cannot be edited afterward.
- Where do the records live?
- In your own Microsoft 365 environment, under your existing security and retention policies. SteadyState operates no servers that hold your data.
- What does a seat cost beyond SteadyState?
- About $5 per user per month for Power Apps licensing, paid to Microsoft. People without a seat need no SteadyState license. Anyone can share a verdict with them by Teams or email.
- How long should a pension board retain meeting minutes and vote records?
- Plans commonly keep them permanently, and state audit programs expect them to be available. SteadyState records live in your own environment, under the retention policy you already apply.
- Who is responsible for pension board records – the board secretary or the plan administrator?
- Whoever holds that duty today keeps it. The difference is that the vote produces the record, so the secretary or administrator reviews it instead of reconstructing it from notes.
- How does voting work in SteadyState?
- Each body sets its own policy – unanimous consent, majority of votes cast, or two-thirds. Trustees approve, reject, abstain, or recuse, and the chair or secretary can record an absence, attributed to whoever recorded it. The tally is stamped on the locked record when the vote closes – which is what a fiduciary record needs years later – and a rejection requires a written reason.
- Is SteadyState a board portal alternative to Diligent or OnBoard?
- For the decision record, yes. Portals distribute board books and archive documents; SteadyState records the vote itself and locks the approved decision. Some systems run both. The OnBoard comparison and the category guide have the detail.
See it before you decide
The demo walks a decision from draft to locked record, including what happens when someone tries to change it after approval. It takes a few minutes and runs in your browser.