For an agency that is responsible for so much state money, the Kansas Board of Regents has taken an unsettling turn toward secrecy in recent weeks.

On Tuesday, the Journal-World learned that Kansas University, Wichita State and Pittsburg State all had submitted new tuition proposals to replace those that regents received in May. However, no one from KU or the regents was willing to talk about what was in those requests until they are discussed by the regents, an item that appears on the agenda for today’s meeting.

Unfortunately, the regents also are scheduled to act on those requests today, which means that no one from the public will have a reasonable opportunity to comment on the requests before they are approved or denied. According to regents spokesman Kip Peterson, it is “board practice” not to release tuition proposals before they are presented by the board. Fine, but there should be some time between the presentations and the board’s action.

Because they are appointed by the governor, not elected, the regents aren’t directly responsible to Kansas voters, but it seems they might be interested in what various people across the state had to say about proposed tuition increases before casting their votes.

They should care what students and parents think of the requests. The opinions of state legislators also are important. If legislators think tuition increases are unreasonable, they may be less favorable toward increased state funding next year, which should be of concern to the regents. Is the board looking at increases that are so high that it fears the reaction of state residents?

On another matter, there seems to be some question of whether the Board of Regents will release the results of audits that are being conducted at KU and Pittsburg as part of the transition to new chief executives at those two schools. When asked if the reports would be made public, Peterson said, “it’s a decision for the board to make. I have not received any indication one way or the other.”

Maybe Peterson was just playing it safe, but this issue essentially was decided earlier this month when the Manhattan Mercury filed a complaint with the Kansas attorney general seeking the release of a report on a similar audit conducted at Kansas State University. Attorney General Stephen Six determined that the report was subject to the Kansas Open Records Act and should be released — and it was. Do the regents think Six has changed his mind? Perhaps, as a formality, the regents want to vote on this issue, but there is no question the audit reports should be released.

The regents can choose to keep tuition increases a secret until they are approved. They might even force some other news agency to seek another AG’s opinion on releasing additional audit reports. But why? This is information that eventually will come out. There’s no reason to keep the public in the dark.