YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Records regarding Eastern Gateway Community College’s purchase of a downtown building several years ago have been shared with the state auditor’s office.

Greg White, a member of the Eastern Gateway Community College Governance Authority, expressed concern about the transaction.

Mahoning County Auditor’s office records show that the college paid $5.5 million for the downtown parking deck in 2020. The governance authority sold it and the Harshman Building to the Western Reserve Port Authority earlier this month for $800,000.

“I just want to make sure that we at least have advised the state auditor of that situation, so that there is potentially someone taking a look at that transaction while they’re still working on the other investigations they’re doing,” said White who is a retired U.S. attorney. “So I just want to make sure they know that that was a huge problem.”

Kimberly Murnieks, governance authority chairwoman and the director of the Ohio Office of Budget and Management, said the records and information related to those property transactions have been shared with the state auditor’s office. 

The building that includes the parking deck, which had been named Thomas Humphries Hall in recognition of the former longtime Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber president, also includes retail space. The Harshman Building on Champion housed offices and classrooms of the former college.

WRPA plans to demolish the deck, most of which had been closed for years because of disrepair to its ramps, after an appraisal found it needed $18 million in repairs.

Governance authority members, who were appointed in August 2024 by Gov. Mike DeWine to oversee the dissolution of the college, voted Wednesday to terminate the body, effective Tuesday. It’s the first time an Ohio public institution of higher learning has closed and been dissolved.

The college closed last year after years of financial and accreditation challenges mostly stemming from its free college benefit program. That program allowed union members across the country to earn degrees at Eastern Gateway at no cost to them. Enrollment quadrupled, with most people taking classes online. But the U.S. Department of Education ordered an end to the program and alleged that the college was charging students who received Pell grants more than those who didn’t.

Fred Ransier, who was appointed college executive director by the governance authority, pointed out that while the college is dissolving, some matters persist.

“​​Then there were the federal matters – those are not concluded,” he said, referring to a U.S. DOE investigation. “And as we close our work, there’s uncertainty. Will the state hear from the federal government again?”

He said he and Murnieks met with U.S. DOE representatives to inform them that the college was dissolving.

Also unresolved is an investigation by the state auditor’s office. In January 2024, law enforcement from the state auditor’s special investigations unit, the U.S. Secret Service, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Ohio State Highway Patrol Computer Crimes Unit, Columbus Police Digital Forensics Unit and the Ohio Narcotics Intelligence searched college offices at the main campus in Steubenville.

At that time, the auditor’s office said the search warrants were “part of an investigation looking into matters that both have already been charged and are being prosecuted by our special prosecutors and other concerns about financial legal irregularities here at the college.”