CU Boulder employees will be getting pay raises

3% raises and 1% bonuses are expected

Most University of Colorado Boulder employees will see a 3% raise and about 3,000 graduate students will no longer be required to pay $1,500 in annual student fees starting in January.

On Friday, CU’S Board of Regents unanimously approved pay raises for most employees and Boulder campus officials announced that graduate students on appointment would no longer be required to pay student fees.

CU Boulder and other CU campuses did not meet the enrollment levels necessary to trigger automatic raises this year, which is based on a new compensation model approved by the Board of Regents in April.

“When we saw that we weren’t going to hit the threshold, we knew we needed to intervene and figure something out,” said interim System President Todd Saliman. “Faculty and staff have been working incredibly hard and will continue to do so, the cost of living has been going up and we needed to do something to recognize everyone’s hard work.”

The raises apply to nonclassified employees because the salaries of classified employees — who saw 3% raises starting in July — are set by the state legislature.

Employees will also receive a bonus in January equivalent to 1% of their annual salary, frontline workers will receive a onetime recruitment/retention bonus, lecturers and adjunct instructors will receive a one-time 3% bonus and graduate students on appointment will receive a 3% stipend increase.

“I hope it sends a message that we care and we value their work and we appreciate what they’ve been going through the last couple of years and the work that they will continue to do over the months to come,” Saliman said.

The 3% raises and 1% bonuses are expected to cost $29.6 million across the CU system and will be funded through the system office changing the way it charges campuses for services.

Chancellor Phil Distefano said he was grateful to the Board of Regents and Saliman for making the raises possible and to the faculty and staff who kept the university moving forward over the past two years.

“Our faculty and staff really stepped up, and I’m so appreciative that we’re able to reward them with a salary increase,” Distefano said.

The raises will apply to about 7,900 employees, Distefano said, in addition to the 790 classified employees who received raises this summer. Hourly student employees, temporary employees and those who received low performance ratings don’t qualify, according to CU’S website.

The elimination of student fees for graduate students on appointment — those who are graduate assistants, teaching assistants, part-time instructors and research assistants — has been a years-long effort, and Distefano and Graduate School Dean

Scott Adler said they were thankful for the work of the Graduate and Professional Student Government to address fee waivers.

“The cost of living for our graduate students in the Boulder area is very, very high and anything we can do to make their lives better, particularly students doing research and teaching appointments, anything we can do to make that cost of living lower and their lives easier is all for the good,” Adler said.

Another group that has pressed for CU Boulder to eliminate fees for graduate student workers is United Campus Workers Colorado, which has organized a walkout, sit-in, petitions and other protests in recent years.

Doctoral student and UCWC steering committee member Sam Zhang said he was overjoyed by the news.

Zhang said he sat in a meeting on Monday during which graduate students talked about how they would use the extra money, like going home to visit family or paying down student loans.

“This will make an enormous difference for graduate students,” he said. “We don’t expect the administration to acknowledge us, that’s not their policy, but it’s clear to all graduate students that this is the result of years of hard work from our union.”