PBS&J political donations continue to cause it trouble

Donations to politicians continue to create trouble for PBS&J, the big employee owned engineering firm headquartered in Tampa FL. There's news today that the company's chief financial officer says in a  Securities and Exchange Commission filing that they cannot file their annual report because of an ongoing internal investigation into possible illegal behavior by staff.

This seems to be the latest in  a string of problems for the company from buying political favors.

In December the Federal Election Commission was deadlocked 3 to 3 over whether proceed with a prosecution of CEO John Zumwalt and others over a longstanding practice of paying off politicians personally then getting reimbursement from the firm.

Not rogue employees but "part of business strategy"

FEC investigators said that "political contributions were an important part of PBS&J's business strategy," and that "the practice of making illegal campaign contributions involved officers at all levels of the company and was not limited to a few rogue employees."

The staff report tracked down illegal payments to politicians that totaled some $200,000. Many of them however were back more than five years and arguably non-prosecutable according a statute of limitations.

Three Democrats on the Commission voted last October in favor of prosecution and three Republicans against. In deadlock the case was closed.   

Chief financial officer William DeLoach  and two other PBS&J employees were found in 2006 to have misappropriated $35 million from the company 1998 to 2005 in a scheme that caused overhead costs to be exaggerated and clients to be overcharged. The firm settled with several state and federal agencies to the tune of some millions of dollars.

DeLoach who is still in jail over the embezzlement/cost-padding conviction said the permissive attitude at top levels of PBS&J to paying off politicians led him to think he could get away with helping himself to company money.

Payments to politicians are often privately described as a necessary 'corporate development' or sales expense to gain government contracts.

PBS&J has no outside shareholders. It is employee owned, so the scams have been at the expense of fellow workers or customers. The company has 3,900 on staff with 80 offices.

It was formed in 1959 by Florida state engineers Howard Post, John Buckley, Robert Shuh and Alex Jernigan and was first known as Post Buckley Shuh and Jernigan, shortened to their last initials PBS&J. The '&' is dropped for the holding company PBSJ Corp.

http://www.pbsj.com/

TOLLROADSnews 2010-01-08