East Cleveland’s court-appointed receiver has run into an early obstacle in trying to fix the suburb’s unsteady finances. There’s a “lack of credible financial data,” receiver George E. Shoup III wrote in his first monthly update in March. 

The city hadn’t closed its financial records for November and December 2025, and it hadn’t recorded activity from mid-2023 through 2024 in its accounting system, he wrote.  

“This meant that the accuracy and validity of the accounting system data was in question,” Shoup continued. “This situation was exacerbated by the fact that bank accounts had not been reconciled for a long period of time.”

On top of that, checks and invoices sometimes hadn’t always been received and recorded correctly, nor was there a reliable log of debts, he wrote. Shoup wrote that he and city staff were working together on “gathering an accurate picture” of East Cleveland’s finances.

East Cleveland Mayor Sandra Morgan said she wasn’t surprised by the missing information. She served as interim mayor for part of last year and won office in November. 

“While it is alarming, the whole point of being in receivership is to right the ship and put those structures in place,” she said. 

Now it is “fact-finding time,” she said. Morgan said that Shoup asked her to read up on Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy. East Cleveland is also deciding whether to buy new financial software, she said.

An Ohio Office of Budget and Management official who chairs a financial oversight board in East Cleveland shared Shoup’s update with the public. 

Ohio’s Court of Claims appointed Shoup, a restructuring consultant with Development Specialists Inc., to the job of East Cleveland’s receiver in February. The city is the first to enter receivership since a change in state law last year allowed third-party experts to take over troubled municipal finances. 

East Cleveland’s financial problems have been years in the making, Shoup wrote. The city has been in fiscal emergency since 2012. It spent the years of 1988 to 2006 in fiscal emergency, too. 

Shoup spent his first month meeting with residents, council members, East Cleveland Judge Michael Dawson, Morgan and her staff, he wrote. 

“The mood in City Hall is upbeat, and city workers, leaders, and constituents have all been supportive and as helpful as they can be,” Shoup wrote. “The Receiver is happy to acknowledge this spirit of support and collaboration.”

Read the full update below: