Board of Regents chief of staff resigns after 3 months on job

The state’s higher education board announced Thursday that chief of staff and special counsel Robert Kilroy has resigned.

The board was originally scheduled to meet Friday morning to consider a notice of contract termination, but the special meeting has been canceled, the Nevada System of Higher Education said in an announcement.

Board Chair Cathy McAdoo accepted Kilroy’s “voluntary resignation,” the announcement stated.

The resignation took effect Thursday, Executive Vice Chancellor Crystal Abba said via email in response to a Las Vegas Review-Journal question.

Abba said she could not respond to a question about whether Kilroy received severance pay because “the matter is considered confidential as it relates to a personnel record.”

Three regents had requested an agenda item for the Friday special meeting seeking to end Kilroy’s employment.

Regents were not required to give any reasons for why they were considering the notice.

The board voted in June to hire Kilroy, with Patrick Boylan voting “no” because of concerns with the search process.

Kilroy, an attorney who previously was senior deputy general counsel for the Nevada State Board of Medical Examiners, started on the job in early August under a 12-month contract with a starting annual base salary of $208,942.

He replaced Dean Gould, who retired in December 2020 after he faced criticism for telling a female regent during a meeting to stop with her “child speak.” Keri Nikolajewski was interim chief of staff following that.

Regents failed and restarted the search process following an allegation from a candidate, who said his application was not lawfully reviewed and called for the process to be halted.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.