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RALEIGH (MCT) — New records show that N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger cut a deal last month to increase the severance package for former Provost Larry Nielsen, and it was done the day before Nielsen resigned.

Moreover, the publicly disclosed terms of Nielsen's payout show he will receive more than what officials had indicated — with Nielsen now set to receive $310,255 in extra pay above his faculty salary.

The documents directly contradict the public comments that Oblinger offered about Nielsen's exit last month as the chief academic officer of the state's largest university.

The university released the revised Nielsen payout information late Sunday after days of requests from The News & Observer.

They also show that Oblinger changed the payout package in apparent violation of university rules.

Oblinger, the chancellor since January 2005, could not be reached for comment.

Other officials declined to comment, including UNC system President Erskine Bowles, who was working in his Chapel Hill office late into the evening. Bowles hires the university chancellors in North Carolina.

Nielsen resigned on May 14, citing "intense public attention and criticism" of his hiring of former first lady Mary Easley. Oblinger said in a news conference at the time that Nielsen resigned on his own. But officials would not release the terms of his separation.

Then, last week, Oblinger and other university officials said that Nielsen would keep his provost's pay for six months while he had a six-month study leave.

Oblinger said the payout to Nielsen was part of his original contract and was "very standard." The documents now show otherwise.

On Saturday, officials disclosed that Nielsen would actually be paid over 18 months — then later said it would actually be over three years.

A university policy says such deals should be for a maximum of a year.

The records released Sunday show:

•* Nielsen originally had a six-month payout package if he left his job before serving five years as provost. He had been in the job since June 2005.

•* Oblinger wrote to Nielsen on May 13, saying he would accept his resignation, and then outlined the new terms of the deal.

•* Oblinger also confirmed "our discussion" with Nielsen related to a state law that allows state employees to access a defense attorney from the Attorney General's office in a criminal or civil matter. A federal grand jury is probing the hiring of Mary Easley. Officials have said the hiring of Mary Easley was Nielsen's idea.

The documents detailing the deal struck by Nielsen and Oblinger were released late Sunday night after the executive committee of the N.C. State University Board of Trustees held an emergency meeting by phone.

A hastily called meeting of the school's full board of trustees will take place at 2 p.m. today, NCSU officials said.

Burley Mitchell, a trustee and former chief justice of the state Supreme Court, said he was unaware of the subject of today's meeting.

Numerous N.C. State and university system officials declined to react to disclosures in Sunday's N&O that a payout package for Nielsen will give him a larger salary for much longer than previously disclosed.