The Iowa Board of Regents has admitted that it violated the state’s open-meetings laws last year during a problem-plagued search for a new president of the University of Iowa, and has reached a settlement with the Iowa City Press-Citizen, a newspaper that sued the board.

The lawsuit challenged the board’s use of “rolling meetings,” a tactic that allowed it to recess a meeting without adjourning, then reconvene at a later date under the scope of the same meeting. The board used the tactic several times last November during discussions that led to the dissolution of a presidential-search committee and rejection of four finalists. The newspaper contended that the regents had failed to provide the required notice of meetings and exceeded the scope of what could be discussed in closed sessions.

The regents unanimously approved the settlement agreement to end the lawsuit, the Press-Citizen reported, and they agreed to pay the newspaper $45,000 in legal fees. The board’s president, Michael Gartner, also said he would no longer use rolling meetings.

The regents’ handling of the initial, ill-fated search for a new president to replace David J. Skorton, who left in July 2006 to become president of Cornell University, drew harsh criticism on the campus and across the state. A new search eventually chose Sally Mason, then provost of Purdue University, as the University of Iowa’s new president. —Mary Andom