On Thursday, Colorado athletic director Rick George announced that he, along with Colorado's 11 varsity head coaches would be taking voluntary pay cuts leading into the upcoming fiscal year in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has strained the finances of universities and athletic departments across the country.
George, Karl Dorrell, JR Payne and Tad Boyle will all take 10 percent pay cuts, while the remaining eight varsity coaches will take a 5 percent cut.
Similarly, Colorado President Mark Kennedy, all four university chancellors, CU Boulder's provost and chief operating officer all are taking voluntary cuts, too.
George in the summer of 2019 inked a five-year contract extension that was approved, 6-2, by Colorado's Board of Regents. His base salary is $850,000, while incentives within George's contract, given if he meets academic, fundraising and attendance goals, is just short of $1,000,000.
“I applaud our head coaches for taking a leadership role in this,” George said in a release. “It’s the right thing for all of us to do. There are a lot of unknowns ahead of us, and while we don’t exactly know yet the financial impacts for the upcoming year, for them to agree and voluntarily take pay cuts is important at this time for our student-athletes and the overall direction of all our sports programs and support areas.”
As for Dorrell, he is in the first year of a contract that pays him $18 million over the span of five years. Dorrell this year is set to make $3.2 million, with an annual increase of $200,000 throughout his contract.
Colorado's regents approved his five-year deal in early March.
Boyle is signed through 2025 and is currently making about $1.8 million per year, while Payne, who signed a contract through 2021 in 2016, began with a base salary of $175,000.
Applying the 10 percent deductions, that equates roughly to $85,000 for George, $320,000 for Dorrell, $180,000 for Boyle and about $17,500 for Payne.
Boyle additionally recently declined to accept a contractual bonus of $105,000 that George awarded him for Colorado making the NCAA Tournament, which of course ended up being cancelled, although the Buffs were widely expected to be among the teams who made it to March Madness.
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