University of Hawaii at Manoa Chancellor Tom Apple says he was forced out as head of the UH system’s flagship campus Wednesday, two years into his five-year appointment.

Apple said he was removed "for alleged unsatisfactory performance" in his job.

"The community has a right to know from the horse’s mouth, rather than wondering what happened," Apple said in an email to reporters late Wednesday. "I was handed a termination letter late this afternoon by President Lassner. … I asked one more time if there was any chance that he might reverse his intention to release me from the post, and was told ‘no.’"

Apple said he had provided David Lassner with a rebuttal of the allegations.

"I believe I have done my job to the best of my ability and in service to the true needs of this institution," he said in a statement released by his lawyer, Hawaii island attorney Jerry Hiatt.

Apple was hired in May 2012 at a $439,008 annual salary under former UH President M.R.C. Greenwood, who recommended he be appointed to a five-year term through June 30, 2017, "subject each year to successful annual performance evaluations at the level of satisfactory or above."

Hiatt had previously said the chancellor had three years remaining on a five-year contract that included rights to a tenured faculty position.

Under the terms of a settlement agreement released to the media by Hiatt, Apple will be reassigned as a tenured chemistry professor at an annual salary of $299,000, effective Sept. 1. The settlement also includes a $100,000 lump-sum payout as compensation and for attorneys’ fees.

Apple said he rejected a previous offer for a position at Manoa’s medical school because he would have had to report to John A. Burns School of Medicine Dean Jerris Hedges.

"That would have created untenable conditions, under which I would have had to leave the university entirely," he said. (Apple reportedly tried to terminate Hedges.)

The move comes one day after UH President David Lassner alluded to an impending firing in a statement that said he had tried to maintain confidentiality about the situation "to provide the chancellor the privacy and dignity that any of us would want for ourselves in a difficult personnel situation."

Hiatt has said that Apple’s efforts to curb expenses at Manoa have riled some deans and directors, who have lobbied for his removal.

Earlier this month, Apple announced a plan to save $10 million in each of the next two years by imposing a hiring freeze and suspending salary increases for nonunion employees until further notice. The plan also stipulates that programs that ended the fiscal year in the red will have their negative balances applied against their 2014-15 budgets.

He’s also been criticized for allegedly favoring the athletic department, last year "forgiving" a $14.7 million accumulated net deficit the department built up over the previous decade.

"Though I have been forced out of my post as chancellor, I remain willing to serve the university,"  Apple said.

He expressed gratitude and aloha "to the students, staff, faculty and administrators here on campus, and to the members of the larger community throughout the state, who have worked so tirelessly with me."