BOULDER, Colo.—The president of the University of Colorado is defending raises for top administrators using tuition hikes from students, saying the money is justified to keep top talent for one of the state’s top research institutions.
“I’ve got to pay for good people. I want quality. You’re not going to have quality if you don’t have quality people working for you,” Bruce Benson said.
According to records obtained by the Boulder Daily Camera () under the Colorado Open Records Act, administrators used money generated from last year’s 9 percent tuition hike to reward many of its top administrators, including Chancellor Phil DiStefano, whose salary went up nearly $50,000 to $389,000 a year.
DiStefano said staffers who were meeting or exceeding expectations earned a one-time, 3 percent raise and that eligible faculty also got raises.
Nine administrators were given merit raises exceeding $10,000, and nine others got raises exceeding that amount last year. Other top administrators who got raises included Jill Pollock, chief human resources officer, who received a $30,000 raise, increasing her salary to $240,000.
This year, university administrators are proposing a nearly 16 percent tuition increase and a second round of raises, raising tuition by about $1,200 for students in the College of Arts and Sciences. That would cost students about $8,900 next year.
About 7,500 employees across the entire CU system were eligible for raises from the compensation pool: 5,100 were faculty members and 2,400 were professional staff members.
Some regents said they felt they were misled about the purpose of the bonus pool.
“I had the impression the salary pool would be distributed on a merit basis to employees on a one-time, year-end bonus, not be a base-building salary raise,” said Jim Geddes, R-Sedalia, the lone regent voting against the compensation pool last year.
Regent Joe Neguse, D-Boulder, said there’s no dispute that the majority of CU employees’ salaries are below those of their peers at universities across the country. But, he said, those rewards should be given when the university has the funds to do so.
“We had a communication breakdown where we perhaps understood what we were proposing and they had a different understanding,” said Ken McConnellogue, spokesman for the CU system.
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Information from: Daily Camera,
