Despite the departure of more than 100 staff personnel as a result of a “buyout package,” Chancellor Robert Coombe said Friday that the DU is financially stable and there are no plans to extend the severance offer to faculty members.

To date, 111 of 1,674 staff members have accepted the buyout that offered employees who resigned by Dec. 24 a lump sum severance package equal to six months of the employee’s salary. In addition, more staff personnel may be laid off, according to a December e-mail to staff and faculty. These employees will also receive the salary they would have earned until the end of the university’s fiscal year which ends June 30.

In an interview with the Clarion, Coombe described the reduction in staff positions as a “realignment of university dollars” with more funds redirected to enhance financial aid packages for students.

“The reason for doing this [restructuring] certainly does not have its roots in the economy. If you look at the history of the university, we are still in the best shape we’ve ever been in. We’re certainly aware of what’s going on out there economically, but we’re positioned about as well as we could possibly imagine to weather that,” Coombe said.

The chancellor did, however, confirm that there may be more “reductions in staff,” through layoffs this academic year although he did not give any information as to how many or when. Any layoffs that do occur will be directly related to the ongoing restructuring plan for the university, Coombe said.

The recent decrease in staff in the Division of Athletics and Recreation was due to both layoffs and staff who voluntarily accepted the severance package, according to DU spokesman Jim Berscheidt.

“Athletics has done its realignment already, and that’s where that comes from,” Coombe said of rumors that large scale layoffs had taken place in the department.

Coombe acknowledged that DU has in fact been impacted by the failing economy. The endowment, which at the end of last quarter was about equal to DU’s operating costs, has decreased this year. The administration is also concerned that students and their families may face new challenges in covering tuition costs as a result of the unstable market.

“Our principle worry in this is really with the families of the current students and current students themselves enabling them to stay here once they’ve been admitted. We want to make sure that the institution does everything we can to make it possible for them to stay with us at DU.”

Berscheidt said that many universities, in strengthening themselves against the economy, have pulled back funding on campus building projects and increased class sizes, but noted that DU has not needed to resort to such measures.

“One of the things that some schools would do is to increase the size of their class potentially. And DU students enjoy the small faculty-to-student ratio,” Berscheidt said.

“We’re certainly not cutting faculty. If anything we’re thinking about adding faculty,” Coombe said.