Experts warn that some $10 million in opioid settlement funding could be going to programs that are not directly addressing the epidemic. Lombardo disputes it.

NSHE Chief Financial Officer Andrew Clinger told the Board of Regents the moves were not in direct violation of state law, but rather created a potential clash with "legislative intent." 

The fee is the first of its kind in Nevada, and has been billed by employees of the newspaper and other advocates as a means to fund the outlet in the long term without the need to rely directly on advertising, university administrators or the undergraduate student government. 

The deferral agreement includes both an "admonishment" of the pair from the ethics board, as well as a request for a memorandum of understanding between the Board of Regents and ethics commission.

Emails obtained by The Nevada Independent through public records requests shed new light on the internal debates within the Board of Regents and the NSHE leadership over how to handle the increasingly divisive political football of a COVID vaccine mandate.

The agreement, effective as of Friday, includes a lump sum $610,000 severance payment, or roughly half of the value of the two-and-a-half years remaining on her original contract

Amid a turbulent few months for the governing board of the state's higher education system, multiple candidates have filed to run in every one of the open seats on the Board of Regents.

Four major business groups and one of Nevada's largest group of unions issued a letter Tuesday asking the state ethics board to investigate the conduct of two leaders on the Board of Regents.

The investigation also found that some of the circumstances raised by the chancellor's complaint, which was filed in October, reflect an "inappropriate professional environment," and in some cases may also have violated the ethics code.

The inaction came amid mounting concerns that the delay or revocation of terminations the day before they were planned would create "operational chaos" across all eight NSHE institutions. 

In separate votes, the board voted 7-4 to name Regent Carol Del Carlo as new chair pro tempore and Regent Amy Carvalho as vice chair pro tempore.

Though McAdoo and Carter will retain their seats on the 13-member board, which regents might emerge as leaders in the interim is unclear. 

In an email sent Monday, search chair and Regent Patrick Carter added that he recommended the current search for a new special counsel be canceled and that an outside firm be retained to conduct a new search. 

Three weeks after the chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education leveled serious allegations against the top two members of the Board of Regents, little has changed. 

In an extraordinary 21-page rebuke of the top two members of the Board of Regents, Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Melody Rose outlined an alleged pattern of hostility ultimately designed, she said, to force her from her position as the system's top administrator. 

Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Melody Rose accused Board of Regents leaders of persistent hostility and undermining her ability to do the job in a hostile work environment complaint filed Monday, a stunning split between the system's chief administrator and the governing board that hired her. 

Today, even as the hope and optimism for an in-person semester that even six months ago was a far-away fantasy have remained, frustration and disappointment have simmered. 

Though the governor's office confirmed Friday that NSHE employees were included in a new policy for state employees requiring vaccination or weekly tests, the status of a possible student mandate remains unknown.

The Board of Regents met for two days this week to hash out a host of higher education issues in the wake of a busy legislative session that saw operational budgets slashed even as personnel budgets were spared.

In the latest push to address the deepest cuts to higher education budgets since the Great Recession, the Board of Regents voted 7-4 Friday to approve a second one-time injection of nearly $80 million in operating funds into institutional budgets, a move that will erase an extra $25 million in cuts made by the Legislature during its first special legislative session this summer.