Why Does ProCAP Have 58 Employees? And Why Did They Have 120 Last Year???

For this post and the prior, I've been tempted to create a new A.R. category: "Shady Quangos". It is not difficult to imagine that ProCAP is not the only government funded non-profit which spends its tax dollars in questionable ways.

Today, we add to the list of troubling practices at ProCAP.

Further to my concerns about the situation at ProCAP, I spoke this morning to ProCAP spokesman, Bill Fischer. He advised that the signatory on the organization's checkbook would be changed today. It will be interesting to see in due course what checks were cut in recent months and, especially, the last two weeks as scrutiny on the organization has ramped up sharply. (In fact, we learned today that the US Attorney began taking an active interest in the organization six months ago.)

As Mr. Fischer was far more forthcoming than other officials on this matter, I took the opportunity to ask him about the extent of the employee roster at ProCAP. He advised that ProCAP currently has fifty eight employees. Without my prompting, he volunteered that a review of employees was being undertaken.

Fifty eight employees? That seems awfully high. What do they all do? How does this payroll compare with ProCAP's gross revenue? Has the level of services provided to the community been unnecessarily suppressed in preference of excessive hiring?

Once again, we return to the matter of oversight - or the apparent lack thereof. Shouldn't our elected officials on the state and local level have been asking the above questions, and more, all along? Would the situation at ProCAP have deteriorated to this point if they had done so?

ADDENDUM

WPRI's Ted Nesi e-mailed me a link to this WPRI investigation of a couple of weeks ago. In it, Tim White and Ted had determined, amoung other things, that ProCAP had 120 employees in 2010!

Many details about ProCAP remain unclear. An up-to-date list of its employees has yet to surface. The nonprofit employed 120 workers in a 2010 filing with the IRS.

Good job, guys.

All the more do we need to ask what happened to the level of services offered to the community as those in charge ramped up the payroll. All the more do we need to know where our elected officials were as our tax dollars were being expended in this questionable manner.