When the Radford University Board of Visitors meets later this week, Robert Blake won't be there. Blake, who has served on various Radford boards and committees for more than 30 years, has resigned amid controversy about secrecy and money.

"I've severed all my ties with Radford," he said.

Rector R.J. Kirk said Blake gave "sensitive and confidential information" to the university's foundation.

Blake says he was simply being responsible.

In April, Blake told Gordon King, then chairman of the foundation's finance committee, about a board of visitors' plan to increase President Penelope Kyle's deferred payment from $55,000 a year to $200,000 annually.

"I do not regret my actions," Blake said in his Aug. 4 resignation letter. "Radford University is a public institution of the Commonwealth, and most of its transactions and events, including compensation packages for faculty and administrators, should not be veiled in secrecy from its stakeholders."

Kyle's deferred payment comes in addition to her $290,299 annual salary, $13,957 in bonuses, housing and use of an automobile.

The foundation provides Kyle's car and more than $153,000 of her salary and bonus. The foundation also funds Kyle's deferred pay.

Deferred compensation is simply part of a worker's income that is paid out after it is earned. Often part of a retirement package, the arrangement generally has tax advantages, since the money is taxed when it's taken out, not when it's put in. Generally, to collect, the worker has to work through a certain date or fulfill a contract.

Most of the foundation's roughly $32 million consists of restricted funds -- money designated by donors for specific purposes. Payments to Kyle must come from unrestricted funds. King, who resigned from the foundation board in June, said the foundation simply can't afford to commit giving Kyle $1 million over her five-year contract extension.

That would set a floor for payments to the next Radford president, King said, a dangerous precedent when state funding for higher education is less than generous.

"If you're going to fund something like that, you need to put a fund drive on to endow it," King said.

That endowment would need to be just short of $8 million to ensure those payments over the long term, he said.

In a series of e-mails that led to Blake's resignation, Kirk said it had become clear that someone on the board of visitors was "conveying to others confidential information" the board of visitors had discussed in closed session.

Virginia's Freedom of Information Act allows public boards and committees to discuss some issues out of public view. The law does not require that anything be discussed behind closed doors.

"My question to you is," Kirk wrote to Blake, "(1) whether this is a matter upon which we should consult the Attorney General's office, (2) is it something we should ask the Virginia State Police to investigate or (3) should we conduct a private investigation in which we ask each of the members some relevant questions while a written transcript is made?"

In an interview Friday, Kirk declined to say exactly what the attorney general or state police might investigate.

Alan Gernhardt, a lawyer for the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, and Megan Rhyne, acting director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, both said that discussing what goes on in closed meetings may be bad form, but it's not illegal.

"It's freedom of speech," Gernhardt said. "The vast majority of time, if people want to say something, they can."

Rhyne said a bill that would have punished those who spoke about executive sessions was introduced in the General Assembly a couple of years ago. It was defeated because it constituted prior restraint, she said, something outlawed by the First Amendment.

King said it's odd that Kirk would be upset about this bit of information sharing.

"The strange thing," King said, "is the rector called me before Bob did."

Kirk denies that he talked to King about the payment proposal before Blake did. But King was adamant.

"Mr. Kirk is wrong," he said.

There is a long history of poor communication between the board of visitors and the foundation board, according to King and Blake. At times, the board of visitors has seemed to commit foundation funds without the foundation's approval -- something beyond the board of visitors' authority.

"The board of visitors doesn't have access to the foundation's bank account," King said.

In theory, the Radford University Foundation is independent of the board of visitors, though at least three people -- including Kirk and Blake -- sat on both boards when this brouhaha began.

At its April meeting, the board of visitors agreed to extend Kyle's contract by five years and appointed board member Nancy Agee to negotiate the details.

According to Blake, Kirk had announced in the preceding closed session that the College of William and Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University wanted to hire Kyle away -- and that Kyle wanted a substantial increase in her deferred payments.

About a week later, Mary Ann Hovis, the board of visitors' liaison to the foundation board, brought up the issue at a foundation board meeting. King said he knew about it -- he'd talked with both Blake and Kirk by then -- and suggested that the foundation appoint two people to join Agee in the negotiations with Kyle. He also suggested that the negotiators retain outside legal counsel, because Kyle's husband, Charles Menges, is a partner with McGuire, Woods, the foundation's law firm.

The foundation's future has been the subject of speculation across campus and among donors for some time. Programs have had trouble accessing funds in their designated foundation accounts. In the wake of that and rumors of the foundation's funding an increase in Kyle's deferred payments, some donors have been reluctant to continue giving to the university. Some, such as Blake, have stopped giving.

Blake, who had been on the foundation board since 1977, when he says the foundation had only $78,000 in assets, was not reappointed this year. Blake calls it a purge, a reduction of foundation board members from 30 to 17.

Blake said foundation President David DeHart told him the foundation's new bylaws forbade his reappointment. The bylaws were adopted in August, Blake said. He was taken off the board in June.

Kirk has suggested that the foundation drop its five financial advisers and replace them with Spider Management, which invests money for the University of Richmond. A decision on that may come to light later this week. The board of visitors' agenda includes an item titled "Recommendation to the Board of Visitors for the approval of revisions to University-Related Foundations Policy."

"The Board of Visitors, to me, operates too much in secret," Blake said. "The real work gets done in executive session."

Kirk said Blake's absence from the board of visitors doesn't present a problem. The board has had empty seats all year. Kirk said he has notified Gov. Tim Kaine of Blake's resignation so the process of naming a replacement can begin.

Staff writer Anna Mallory contributed to this report.