STEUBENVILLE — Investigators looking for “financial irregularities” searched Eastern Gateway Community College’s Steubenville offices Thursday, the latest in a series of setbacks for the school.

Members of the state auditor’s Special Investigations Unit were joined by county, state and federal authorities — including Jefferson County sheriff’s deputies, the Ohio State Highway Patrol’s Computer Crimes Unit, the U.S. Secret Service, the Columbus Division of Police’s Digital Forensics Unit and the Ohio Narcotics Intelligence Center — while executing the search warrant.

“Our auditor’s office special investigations unit is a partnership among law enforcement officers, sworn police officers and forensic auditors where we go in and track down financial irregularities and essentially check for people lying, stealing and cheating with government money,” Auditor Keith Faber said in a video statement released after the warrant was executed, adding it was “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.”

Sources at EGCC reported computers had been seized, but the auditor’s office declined further comment except to note the search was “separate from the August indictments of former college administrators.”

Eastern Gateway spokesman Dennis Willard said the college is “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.”

Thursday’s action was the latest in a series of events that have raised concerns in the community about the school.

Former EGCC President Jimmie Bruce and former Vice President and Chief of Staff Jim Miller were indicted five months ago on charges stemming from alleged misuse of college credit cards for purchases not related to the operations of the school. On Wednesday, however, Special Prosecutor Thomas Anger moved to dismiss the charges against Bruce without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled at a later date.

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

But, in November, a member of the school’s board of trustees told the state controlling board the federal education department is still rejecting the college’s requests for reimbursement for the program “due to deficiencies in the applications for those reimbursements.”

The Free College Benefit program, discontinued in July, had fueled the school’s rapid growth into an online powerhouse, 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. The DOE alleged the college violated financial aid rules by subsidizing the program with Pell Grant money they’d awarded to the income-eligible students, and in July 2022 the education department had ordered the college to stop offering the program and submit a teach-out agreement, prompting the college’s lawsuit.

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 recordkeeping.”

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.

Contacted late Thursday afternoon, Laura Janote, public information officer for the Higher Learning Commission, declined to issue a statement, saying only that HLC is “not prepared to comment further at this time.”

In September, the school, which has campuses in Steubenville and Youngstown, laid off members of its support staff in response to a decrease in enrollment, Willard said at the time.

Then, 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.

John R. Crooks has been the school’s interim president since July after Michael Geoghegan, who had served as the school’s president since July 15, 2020, announced plans to retire.