The court-appointed special master named in December to oversee the possible sale of Myers University says the Cleveland institution is farther in debt than he realized.

The overseer, Mark Dottore, says the college has made some questionable deals under the administration of the president who preceded the recently ousted Richard Scaldini. Those deals included a five-year lease in 2003 for $2-million, plus utilities and taxes, on a building called the University Club. Myers is now about $100,000 behind in its rent on the club, which it uses for administrative offices, classes, and dinner events.

“They were idiots for signing the lease,” Mr. Dottore, who was appointed by Judge Daniel Gaul of the Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, told The Plain Dealer, a newspaper in Cleveland. He said he still hoped the university could either be sold or be operated in partnership with an interested group.

A group led by some of the same officials who own the for-profit University of Northern Virginia has been interested in buying the college.

Recently, however, at least two other parties have also expressed interest. One of the proposals came from Knowledge Investment Partners, a private-equity firm with a Cleveland office, which has said it wants to buy Myers. The firm is one of several private-equity firms that have been active in buying colleges. In September it bought Schiller International University, based in Florida.

The other new player is a group of Ohio public-school districts, career centers, and county educational-service centers. As previously reported by The Plain Dealer, they don’t want to buy Myers but want instead to develop a program there that would serve high-school juniors and seniors interested in earning college credit. The classes would be offered online, at Myers or possibly in the high schools themselves. —Goldie Blumenstyk