Pension chief vote delayed
Harassment findings put administrator’s job at risk
After a one-day delay, a decision is expected today on whether to fire state public safety pension Administrator Jared Smout for sexual harassment.
A state public safety pension board delayed deciding the fate of Administrator Jared Smout, who has admitted to state investigators he sexually harassed staff dating to 2014.
The Public Safety Personnel Retirement System on Tuesday decided to wait a day on its decision because it was unclear if the agency had followed the state’s Open Meetings Law by disclosing on its agenda that action would be taken on Smout. A vote on whether to terminate Smout is now slated for Wednesday.
The Arizona Department of Administration on Monday urged PSPRS to fire Smout in response to a blistering ADOA investigation that found he sexually harassed staff and, with PSPRS, covered up a 2014 investigation into whether he spent hours watching a staffer that he was attracted using surveillance video.
With Smout and PSPRS hiding that information, Smout was promoted to interim administrator in 2014. A year later, he became administrator. While in that post he admitted harassing an employee for more than a year by sending inappropriate text messages, hugging and staring at the person’s body, records show. Smout, who is married, explained his behavior to investigators by saying “he was a man.”
An employee’s complaint in April about Smout’s behavior to ADOA, the state’s personnel office, triggered an investigation that might cost him his $252,200 a year job.
Meanwhile, The Arizona Republic has found that Smout during his tenure also gave large raises and bonuses to his inner circle despite poor financial results for the insolvent $10 billion trust fund, which has less than half of the money needed to pay all of its obligations.
Neither the state nor PSPRS would reveal the gender or number of employees harassed.
Current PSPRS Board Chairman William T. Buividas, a Phoenix police officer, said Tuesday the pension fund
never would have promoted Smout, who was deputy administrator, had it known about his behavior five years ago.
Buividas said there was nothing in Smout’s personnel file to show he was investigated in 2014.
It was unclear how state investigators with ADOA found a thumb drive that contained a 2014 letter about Smout’s video surveillance viewing habits of a staffer at the pension fund, which provides retirement benefits for first responders, lawmakers, judges and correctional officers.
ADOA, in response to a public records request from The Republic, released partially-redacted records Tuesday from the 2014 investigation that indicated Smout spent hours daily viewing live video of a staff person and was “playing recordings that seemed suspicious in content.”
The records indicate Smout used internal surveillance to make at least 378 views and spent roughly a half hour to 71⁄2 hours daily from May 19 to June 23, 2014 viewing video. State investigators said Smout used PSPRS surveillance cameras to monitor a person he was attracted to.
The information was given to then Administrator Jim Hacking, who did not discipline Smout.
Instead, Hacking on July 9, 2014 gave Smout a $7,178 raise, lifting his pay to $166,650, records obtained by The Republic show.
Hacking was fired shortly thereafter after The Republic uncovered he gave secret raises to his investment staff without state approval. Hacking could not be reached for this story.
Smout this year admitted to investigators the video monitoring had occurred for at least a few months.
However, no one reported the information to the PSPRS board, according to former Chairman Brian Tobin, a
Phoenix firefighter.
Smout acknowledged to investigators that the board may not have approved his appointment as administrator had they known he watched surveillance video of the employee.
As administrator, Smout gave raises and bonuses to his inner circle over the objections of ADOA.
In April, that agency warned PSPRS to not give more raises to staff in response to a $43,147 retroactive raise that PSPRS awarded Smout at the end of 2018.
The PSPRS board ignored the warning and gave a $39,500 raise to the fund’s interim director, Bret Parke, former legal counsel for ADOA. That brought his annual pay to $225,000.
Parke on Tuesday said he had no knowledge of Smout’s 2014 investigation when worked at ADOA.
In May, the PSPRS board unanimously approved retroactive bonuses totaling more than $120,000 to three executives, including one who had retired, and another $51,481 payout to the estate of a dead ex-employee.
The vote came after The Republic reported that Smout had granted, without formal board approval, bonuses to investment staffers who claimed they were owed money from 2013.
Buividas said Tuesday that Smout was told in an executive session to grant the bonuses. However, there is is no record to show that the board, prior to May, had told Smout in an executive session or private meeting to award the payouts.
When asked by a reporter if Smout gave those raises and bonuses to cover up his sexual harassment, PSPRS spokesman Christian Palmer said: “Do you have a brain injury?”
Have a tip on investigative stories? Reach the reporter at craig.harris@ arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8478 or on Twitter @charrisazrep.
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