Inside the nonprofit earmark magnet in Murtha's district

Washington Post:

Concurrent Technologies began two decades ago doing metalworking research in Pennsylvania's struggling rust belt. In the years since, the Johnstown, Pa., company has become a federal contracting chameleon.

It is an intelligence adviser, an environmental consultant and a software engineering specialist. It has trained mine-detecting dogs and managed religion-based initiatives. It oversees construction projects, organizes conferences and studies ways to use hydrogen for fuel in Pennsylvania and South Carolina. Missile-defense research is part of its portfolio. So is the development of special armor for combat vehicles in Iraq and "solid waste technology" in Florida.

And it is a nonprofit charity. (Emphasis added.)

Behind the rise of Concurrent is Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, who helped arrange funding to launch the organization in 1988. Murtha has since arranged millions of dollars more in directed congressional appropriations called earmarks. Now Concurrent has nearly $250 million in annual revenue and 1,500 employees.

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According to Concurrent's chief financial officer, Edward J. Sheehan Jr., the Internal Revenue Service approved Concurrent as a charity because it "lessens the burden on governance" and helps "the federal government and American industry to perform more effectively through the use of emerging technologies."

Though most of its revenue comes from government contracts, it has thrived with help from the political imprimatur that comes with the earmarks and their sponsors.

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Former Concurrent officials said the nonprofit organization's executives, some of them veterans of for-profit contractors inside the Beltway, accepted increasing responsibilities to keep Concurrent expanding. As revenues grew, so did their salaries, which for the top three executives rose from an average of $262,000 in 1999 to an average of $462,000 last year, according to documents on file with the IRS.

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Concurrent executives did not return phone calls or respond to e-mail requests for interviews. In a report last year, they attributed Concurrent's growth to the "scientists, engineers, technical experts and highly trained support staff" whose research they said saves the government millions of dollars and helps protect the country's war fighters. In earlier interviews with the Post, Concurrent officials compared their operation to other nonprofit corporations, some of them much larger, that help the government plan systems and assess new technology.

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But publicly available audits of Concurrent's work also show that auditors have questioned whether the government has received good value for the money it has poured into some projects.

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Former Concurrent director Bettis Rainsford said the organization's executives "are basically very good people who are very much dedicated to the growth of the organization" and to hiring talented people who can help attract new jobs. But he said the company's research often goes nowhere.

"A lot of the reports never get off the planning table," he said.

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There is much more in this long story. The non profit appears to be a vessel that Murtha uses to poor public funds back into his district and occasionally they produce something worthwhile. The company has also paid a former defense committee aid $3 million for lobby work since 1997. Concurrent has benefited from $226 million in earmarks in the last four years. Apparently some of the money comes back to the congressmen who provide the earmarks in the form of campaign contributions. It is sort of like a perpetual motion machine oiled by public money.