STEUBENVILLE — Nearly a month after authorities raided Eastern Gateway Community College’s administrative offices, the Auditor of State’s Special Investigations Unit is asking anyone with information on “potential fraud, waste and abuse of public resources” at the school to call their tipline.

Earlier this week SIU said it has a dedicated e-mail address (SIUEGCC@ohioauditor.gov) “for tips from anyone who suspects wrongdoing.” Tipsters who’d prefer to remain anonymous can also submit information online through SIU’s webpage, (https://ohioauditor.gov/fraud/default.html) or the Auditor of State’s Fraud Hotline, 866-372-8364.

Police on Jan. 4 had executed a search warrant at EGCC’s Steubenville campus, reportedly seizing computers and files. At the time SIU said investigators were “looking for financial irregularities” in the college’s handling of government money as “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 irregularities at the college.”

An SIU spokesman said they “set up they set up a dedicated email address, along with other hotline/online fraud reporting options, to make it easier to route any pertinent details to our investigators.”

“It’s an ongoing investigation, and we continue to gather information beyond anything that was obtained up to this point,” SIU spokesman Marc Kovak said when asked about the four-week delay.

EGCC spokesman Dennis Willard, meanwhile, declined comment. But after the Jan. 4 raid he’d said the college was “cooperating with all agencies involved, just as we have been open and transparent in our ongoing discussions with the U.S. Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Higher Education.”

In August, EGCC and the U.S. Department of Education reached a tentative settlement in a long-running dispute over the school’s free college benefits program, and the college “voluntarily dismissed” a September 2022 lawsuit against Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and DOE.

The Free College Benefit program, discontinued in July, was credited with fueling an enrollment explosion, but the education department argued that the growth was funded with Pell Grants, a needs-based federal aid program meant to help low-income students get college degrees. DOE alleged the college violated financial aid rules by subsidizing the program with Pell Grant money they’d awarded to income-eligible students and in July 2022 ordered EGCC to stop offering the program and submit a teach-out agreement, prompting the college to file a federal lawsuit.

In November EGCC asked the state for a $12 million advance, telling the state controlling board the federal education department was still rejecting the college’s requests for reimbursement for the program “due to deficiencies in the applications for those reimbursements.”

Meanwhile, the Higher Learning Commission, which provides accreditation services for the school, has had the college on probationary status since November 2021, citing “core concerns centered on assessment, data collection and analysis and human resources record keeping.”

At a Nov. 2 meeting, the commission’s board voted to continue the probation designation, and a few weeks later EGCC’s Education Association announced its members had no confidence in the board or administration, claiming they’d been “unwilling to collaborate with the union” to make the corrections DOE and the Higher Education Learning Commission are demanding.

But in December, EGCC said it had taken steps to address academic and financial issues raised by higher education oversight agencies. That included adding Mike Sherman as an executive on loan to oversee an assessment of the college’s internal operations and the development of an action plan to address the most critical priorities needed to stabilize the institution, and Lauren Mounty to serve as the lead person responsible for review and evaluation of the college’s financial aid department.

Special prosecutors also dismissed indictments that had been returned against former EGCC President Jimmie Bruce and former Vice President and Chief of Staff Jim Miller alleging misuse of college credit cards. The indictments were dismissed without prejudice, meaning charges could be refiled at a later date.

John R. Crooks is currently serving as interim president, replacing Michael Geoghegan, who in June announced he was retiring from the job after four years.