The University of Northern Colorado will freeze faculty and exempt staff salaries for the 2019 fiscal year, the final year of a five-year sustainability plan the school enacted in 2014, according to a memo sent Thursday to faculty and staff by UNC President Kay Norton.
The plan mandates the university have a balanced budget in 2019. Faculty salaries are one of four areas the memo identified for “sustainable cost savings,” the others being $1.5 million in staff restructuring, $1.4 million in staff expenditures such as travel and organizational memberships and a $1.7 million reduction in strategic investments.
Under the compensation identity plan — the faculty and exempt staff salary schedule — personnel were supposed to get an average raise of 3 percent between the 2018 and 2019 fiscal years. UNC faculty are paid 8.2 percent less on average than their peers at similarly sized universities, and exempt staff are paid 11.4 percent less.
The memo also cites Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper’s proposed 2019 budget as a reason for the salary freeze; that budget would cap tuition increases at 3 percent. UNC students have endured yearly tuition increases of 5.8 percent, 8.4 percent and 6.8 percent since 2015.
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