Meeting enrollment targets has always been important for UCCS and has produced important revenue for next year's budget, Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak told faculty and staff who attended a Year in Review and Budget Preview forum Thursday.
A 2 percent enrollment growth target for summer and fall 2011 semesters will be reviewed by the CU Board of Regents at their September meeting when the chancellor will be asked to certify UCCS has met its budget. Budget certification is required in order to implement merit-based raises for faculty and professional exempt staff.
The regents approved tuition rates and pay increases at the April 27 meeting. The salary increases are pending budget certification in September. The earliest the pay increases would be awarded is for October paychecks.
“I ask that you do what you can to boost summer and fall enrollment,” Shockley-Zalabak said. “Life at the university will never go back to the way it was. For the foreseeable future, 10 percent of our funding will come from the state. We are a tuition-dependent university.”
Providing UCCS meets its budget – of which tuition revenue generated by student enrollment is a large component – faculty and professional exempt staff members will be eligible for a merit increase of 3 percent and there will be investments in campus programs.
“I am very proud of this campus in the way we have worked together,” Shockley-Zalabak said. “We are off the cliff and back to doing something much more fun, investing in people and programs.”
If UCCS meets its budget goals, faculty and professional exempt staff may receive their first raises in more than two years beginning in October. The salary increase will be for the period Oct. 2011 through July 2012 and will be added to employee salary base. Salary increases for classified staff members are controlled by the Colorado General Assembly and the Department of Personnel Administration. Shockley-Zalabak plans to meet with classified staff May 24 to outline options available to the university to reward classified staff members.
In a wide-ranging presentation, Shockley-Zalabak connected enrollment, future modest tuition increases, successes of the past year, and updates on the actions of the Colorado General Assembly for those in the audience. While higher education budgets will be cut in 2012, the reductions were not as severe as predicted and for which UCCS had prepared.
“This is the best budget news I have been able to present since 2001,” Shockley-Zalabak said. “We have taken cuts, increased revenues, and have planned for the cut in this year's budget. We are stable and prepared to begin modest investments. This is not just the time to celebrate our graduates but a time to celebrate the accomplishments of our faculty and staff. We are well positioned to recover from very difficult times.”
For more information about actions by the CU Board of Regents regarding salary increases, visit https://communique.uccs.edu/?p=3717
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