The State Controlling Board on a voice vote approved an Office of Budget and Management request to provide emergency funding for Eastern Gateway Community College’s final step to defease state credit-enhanced bonds, a move OBM said is part of an orderly wind-down of the institution.

OBM said the action follows a series of events beginning with the Chancellor of Higher Education declaring Eastern Gateway under fiscal watch on March 11, 2024, the college board voting to dissolve and withdraw accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission, and Governor Mike DeWine appointing a conservator effective Aug. 1, 2024. "The board of trustees of Eastern Gateway Community College subsequently voted to dissolve the college and withdraw accreditation from the Higher Learning Commission," Christina Frass, assistant director of the Office of Budget and Management, told the board.

OBM said the conservator and a governance authority chaired by OBM Director Kim Murnix oversaw the transition and that previous state subsidy advances helped the college finish the 2023–24 academic year. "The advances allowed the college to finish the academic year successfully, avoiding mid academic year shutdown that would have been highly disruptive to the students," Frass said. She told senators the request before the board represented the final installment needed "to defease the state credit enhanced bonds in the final step to orderly wind down the operations."

Board members pressed for student protections and for clarity on the funding source. Senator Ingram asked whether students’ credits will transfer after the accreditation loss; Frass said the transition was "very student centric," citing work with universities including Youngstown State University to provide transfer options and teach-out agreements and review more than 600 outstanding student appeals. Senator Cerino praised that local universities helped students: "Youngstown State really stepped up on behalf of the students to help them so that students were harmed very very little if at all in fact in terms of loss of credit," she said.

Representative Stewart asked for a clear accounting of funding sources and said he did not want state SSI (medicaid) dollars used to settle legal liabilities or pay bonds; President Schueller responded that the board's action reflected emergency purposes accounting and that OBM confirmed the payment would not use SSI dollars for bond defeasance. Frass told the board this would be the final ask to complete the defeasance and that the college would wind down over the summer.

The board approved the item with no recorded recorded objections. The governance authority will complete the wind-down and OBM said it will continue to coordinate student transfers and final administrative steps over the summer.