A trustee and a nominee for Suffolk University’s Board of Trustees, who helped set or defend the high compensation of President David J. Sargent, have significant business ties to the institution, The Boston Globe reported today.

Publicly defending Mr. Sargent’s $2.8-million pay package has been George K. Regan Jr., who was nominated to serve on Suffolk’s board and is a public-relations executive whose company has a $366,000 annual contract with the university, according to the newspaper. And as a member of the board’s executive committee, the Boston lobbyist Robert B. Crowe was involved in approving Mr. Sargent’s compensation amount in 2006. The university pays Mr. Crowe’s lobbying firm $120,000 per year.

Business relationships between universities and trustees are fairly common, and Suffolk officials said the companies were providing a service to the university, at a discount rate. Neither trustee’s business interests influenced Mr. Sargent’s pay, officials said, adding that the university had made all appropriate financial disclosures.

But the business dealings of nonprofit board members are a sensitive topic, and they have received new scrutiny from federal lawmakers. Both the American Council on Education and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges have issued recent reports urging universities to revisit their conflict-of-interest policies.

“It is important that boards apply their conflict-of-interest policy uniformly and that it be consistent with state public-ethics laws,” said Richard D. Legon, president of the governing-board group, in an e-mail message. “Board members should recognize that the appearance of conflict must often be managed in a manner similar to those situations where there is an actual conflict situation.” —Paul Fain