BALTIMORE — In their first meeting since public scrutiny of the Board of Regents’ ethics standards began in February, board members avoided mentioning the scandals Friday as they approved various policies, including a hike in student fees.

The committee appointed to investigate accusations that board Chairman David Nevins lobbied for his employer Constellation Energy Group gave its report in the board’s closed executive session, regent Michael Gill said, because the investigation is confidential.

Whatever actions the board takes in response to the incident – whether punishing Nevins or clarifying the policy and ethical standards – will be announced later this week, Gill said.

The committee’s report evaluates whether meetings Nevins had with state legislative leaders on behalf of Constellation violated a regents policy, enacted in 1999 following a General Assembly mandate, banning regents from lobbying for any interests other than the University System of Maryland.

A unanimous vote from the full board, which met at the University of Baltimore, finalized a $347 increase in standard room and board fees on this campus as well as $16 and $8 parking permit cost increases for campus residents and commuters, respectively.

In his annual report to the full board, system Chancellor Brit Kirwan did not highlight the ethical issues but addressed the system’s most successful budgeting year in history.

He highlighted approved funding for 20 academic-related construction projects at the system campuses, including this university’s new journalism and physics buildings.

He also brought up the in-state tuition freeze the General Assembly and Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R) pushed, which will be enacted without extra cost to the system. Kirwan said it was a result of a strong lobbying presence as well as integrity in fiscal responsibility coming from the system’s efficiency and cost-cutting measures.

“This was a result in large measure of a constant concerted effort,” he said.

The regents also approved an $8.2 million addition to the new Jeong H. Kim Engineering Building. Thanks to the $30 million donation of medical inventor and alumnus Robert Fischell, $3 million of which is going toward the addition, the space will house the Fischell Department of Bioengineering.

The building was designed to have the space added on later, after two to three years of fundraising, said John Porcari, vice president for administrative affairs. However, the Fischell gift expedited the plans, he said.

A large segment of the meeting was also devoted to discussion of the system’s auditing process, during which spending at the system institutions is reviewed. Budget cuts had previously caused the size of the system’s internal auditing office to shrink, but the system has slowly rehired many positions in the office and plans to increase its size by 50 percent next year, Gill said in the meeting.

Audits of the university focus on purchasing and use of university credit cards, as well as the reviews of those purchases in campus departments, whether academic or otherwise, such as the Athletics Department or Dining Services.

“I think it’s a reflection of the fact that there is just much greater scrutiny by boards, both in the public and private sectors … on careful accounting and use of funds,” Kirwan said.

Contact reporter Scott Dance at dancedbk@gmail.com.