Colorado Springs Utilities CEO Travas Deal will make $700,000 a year — a pay increase of $150,000 — by the end of 2027 under an agreement unanimously approved Wednesday by the Utilities Board.

Under the two-step pay increase plan, the CEO’s salary will go from $550,000 a year to $700,000.

The first increase would take effect by the end of May and increase Deal’s salary by $75,000 through the rest of this year. The second increase, scheduled to begin Dec. 20, would include an additional $75,000 in 2027.

The pay amendment would also put an annual salary adjustment in place for 2028, which would increase Deal’s pay by whatever percentage all Utilities employees receive that year.

“I never came close to that kind of money and 99% of our citizens don’t. But 99% of us don’t run a $2 billion organization with 2,000 employees that all of us rely on. Every morning, we get up and flip the switch and the lights come on,” Utilities Board Chairman Dave Donelson said.

Deal’s work to extend the closure date of the Ray Nixon Power Plant until 2032 could save the utility hundreds of millions of dollars over the next few years and showed that he deserved to be fairly compensated, Donelson said.

The Utilities Board — composed of City Council members — had not increased the CEO’s salary between 2018 and March 2024, according to previous Gazette reporting, a period that covered Deal’s first year on the job and the entire term of previous CEO Aram Benyamin. During that time, the CEO of the municipal utility was paid $480,000 per year.

Utilities staff said the $700,000 salary was based on the median pay for the 29 public utilities that belong to the Large Public Power Council. That group includes Colorado Springs and the Platte River Power Authority in northern Colorado, along with providers in 21 other states and Puerto Rico.

Board member David Leinweber said Deal’s salary should be comparable to the top salaries at other utilities, both public and private.

“We lump it in as a government position, but the reality is that in the utility business, it’s mostly non-governmental. It’s mostly corporations,” Leinweber said.

Xcel Energy CEO Bob Frenzel received nearly $16 million in compensation in 2025, according to the Energy and Policy Institute.

Deal already makes about twice as much as the highest-paid employees at City Hall. Wayne Williams, Mayor Yemi Mobolade’s chief of staff, was hired this spring at a salary of $271,000 per year.

Nancy Henjum said she and other board members received dozens of emails from customers since the pay increase was first publicized Tuesday. Henjum said she understood the concerns of residents who were seeing their rates increase, but she said the utility needed to pay for top talent.

Henjum and Donelson, the only two board members who were in office when Deal was hired in February 2023, said Benyamin’s decision to forgo salary increases had been a short-term benefit but led to the current disparity.

“It put the organization a bit at risk for future leadership. I know that can be difficult to understand if you’re struggling just to make ends meet,” Henjum said.

The board approved a pay bump for Deal in March 2024 and a second raise in March 2025 that brought his salary to $550,000.

Under the agreement approved Wednesday, Deal would get six months of severance if he were fired without cause. He would get three to six months of severance under his existing agreement.

Donelson said the severance package was meant to reflect Deal’s tenure and experience, and is on par with what other leaders of public utilities would receive if they were fired without cause.

While the Colorado Springs City Council oversees both the budgets for the city and Colorado Springs Utilities, the two have separate budgets. The Utilities budget for 2026 is $2.2 billion and increased by more than 20% from the previous year.

The city budget for 2026 is around $900 million, and city officials had to make more than $30 million in cuts last year to balance a revenue shortfall.