BATON ROUGE, La. – The Southern University Board of Supervisors has approved a reorganization plan last week that will lead to nearly 90 faculty and staff termination notices going out early next year.

The Advocate of Baton Rouge reported that Southern Chancellor James Llorens said an additional $2.9 million in state budget cuts announced last Friday will force many of the staff layoffs to come earlier in the spring semester than previously hoped.

The expedited layoffs of an estimated 52 staff members will be "staggered" throughout the semester, Llorens said. About 35 faculty termination notices will go out Feb. 1, he said. The staff will keep their jobs until the end of the semester in May.

Southern declared a financial emergency in October because of state budget cuts and student enrollment losses.

The Southern reorganization plan also means consolidating many of the university academic colleges and departments. But Llorens insisted he is not proposing eliminating any individual academic degree programs yet.

"It makes for a hell of a Christmas," said Southern board member Tony Clayton of Port Allen. "This retrenchment plan needs to be retrenched again. How do we get out of this? This is a black hole."

Llorens called the continuing budget cuts a “dire” situation. “We may have to operate with an even leaner operation than we anticipated,” he said.

“This cutting, cutting, cutting we can't take anymore,” said board member Myron Lawson of Alexandria. “There's nothing left. There're only so many minutes you can hold your breath underwater. You're going to drown.”

In addition to eliminating more than 10 percent of the Southern faculty, the plan calls for layoffs in human resources, information technology and campus maintenance and then spreading the other terminations around the rest of the university, Llorens said. The academic college consolidations will mean fewer deans and academic department heads, he said.