Amid tough questions Monday night from state senators, Board of Regents Chairman Eric Martinson pledged greater transparency in tackling the fallout from the botched Stevie Wonder concert and said the body would play a role in making sure a similar debacle doesn’t happen again.

However, his statements didn’t seem to appease state senators, who grilled Martinson for nearly an hour, questioning why the board didn’t take a more active role in assuring the public in the wake of the canceled concert or take a more critical eye to how the university handled the fallout from the benefit.

Martinson was the final UH official to be questioned before a Senate panel investigating the concert, former athletic director Jim Dono­van’s reassignment and, more broadly, the role of the UH president in key management decisions at UH-Manoa.

State Sen. Sam Slom (R, Diamond Head-Hawaii Kai) asked Martinson whether the board feels it is an independent body whose duties include holding UH’s administration accountable. Martinson said he did and that the issue of independence from the administration has not come up on the board.

Several senators also questioned the board’s contention that it did not need to approve Dono­van’s settlement, in which he received a three-year contract in a newly created marketing position earning $211,000 a year. Martinson said the settlement did not have to be approved under board policy because it was under $500,000, but senators disagreed, saying the board should have had to sign off on the agreement.

The deal was already signed by the time the board found out about it, Martinson said.

State Sen. Donna Mercado Kim, chairwoman of the Senate Special Committee on Accountability, expressed disbelief that the board did not think it needed to approve the settlement. "Perhaps you’ve got to change how you run your board," she told Martinson.

Martinson said, in his personal opinion, that while University of Hawaii President M.R.C. Greenwood should not be worried about her job, the concert mess would be considered in her next annual evaluation.

At the same time, Martinson reiterated his support for Greenwood and her handling of the failed concert and reassignment of Dono­van to his new job as director of external affairs and community relations.

"This was a crisis situation," he said. "We had to act quickly."

Martinson also said that the board intends to serve as a watchdog and ensure a similar crisis is prevented. The board is forming a working group to investigate not only the concert debacle, but the university’s financial operations.

He said the board would strive to improve its "openness" and that he agreed steps could have been taken earlier to reassure the public and to get answers more quickly.

Kim concluded the meeting by asking that Martinson return to the panel’s next meeting Oct. 2 — with documentation in hand on how much the concert fiasco is costing taxpayers.