October 30, 2023  |   

In January 2024, CIRES will implement a 4% across-the-board annual increase to eligible research faculty and university staff. This is in lieu of a merit process for this year’s annual increase. 

CIRES continues to prioritize employee compensation, and we are fortunate this year to have the largest raise pool in over 10 years. This action strives to take advantage of that pool to improve the overall salaries of our eligible research faculty and staff and reinforces the importance of our employees’ contributions to the CIRES and CU missions. It is also aligned with the approach that the university is taking with university staff.  

Issuing an across-the-board pay increase this year should not diminish the performance process overall. Performance-related dialogue between a supervisor and supervisee(s) remains vital to one’s professional development and growth at CIRES and beyond.  

It is too early to know what annual increase process will be used by the university in years beyond 2024, but we will keep you informed and updated. Because we are using an across-the-board process this year does not mean that will be the case in future years.

Research faculty and staff eligible for the across-the-board increase include:

  • Active, regular (not temporary or working retiree) research faculty or university staff with an appointment on the effective date (January 1, 2024) and who have a completed performance evaluation for the most recent performance cycle with a rating of meeting expectations or higher (3, 4, or 5) 
  • New hires whose appointments were in effect on or before September 1 who were not eligible to participate in the most recent performance evaluation cycle 
  • Employees who received a base compensation increase effective on or before September 1, if the above performance criteria are also met (meeting expectations or higher), and unless specified otherwise in the terms of an offer letter, MOU, or addendum.

Eligible employees will see their new salary in the January 2024 paychecks. Increases will be supported by the employee’s current funding source.

Ineligible are:

  • Regular employees hired, promoted, transferred, or who receive other base compensation changes effective after September 1; hiring units have been advised to plan accordingly in these cases.
  • Retirees and temporary employees

Related: CIRES GRAs have already received a 4% increase for AY 23-24, starting in August 2023. CIRES Tenured and Tenure-Track faculty will receive a 3.83% increase; the difference from 4.0 is due to a small amount of resources being held by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, to address some broader compensation matters.

More information from CU Boulder:  

If you have questions, please contact CIRES HR (cireshr@colorado.edu).