A Southern California couple have built their nonprofit social-service organization into a statewide, $63-million-a-year enterprise that has paid them more than $7-million over the past five years, says the Los Angeles Times.

Social Vocational Services, founded in 1978 by Edward Dawson and now run by Mr. Dawson and his wife, Marcia, provides job and other training, as well as group housing for the developmentally disabled.

Its financial practices, which have included paying the Dawsons $700,000 annually for renting properties to the organizations, have come under scrutiny from the California attorney general’s office. The organization was also one of five cited by a Senate commission in a 2005 report on employment programs for their executive pay and perks and suspected self-dealing.

The Dawsons did not return the newspaper’s calls for comment. A lawyer for Social Vocational Services said the couple believes their pay should be commensurate with what they would earn in the business world.

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