By Craig Harris | Arizona Republic
The two Public Safety Personnel Retirement System trustees who were removed from leadership last month for representing the pension plan’s administrator in a 2018 home purchase were involved in another previously undisclosed real estate deal with an executive at the agency.
Records obtained by The Arizona Republic show Will Buividas, the former PSPRS chair and a Phoenix police detective, and Mike Scheidt, the former vice chair and a Tempe firefighter, represented PSPRS Employee Relations Manager Philip Coleman in a January 2019 home purchase.
It’s unclear how much they were paid for handling the $315,000 real estate transaction. But Buividas and Scheidt earned up to $6,000 each as loan officer and real estate agent, respectively, for then-Adminstrator Jared Smout’s 2018 purchase of a $550,000 home.
Buividas and Scheidt didn’t publicly disclose that they had been hired by the PSPRS staffers until The Republic obtained public records revealing their involvement in the transactions. Buividas and Scheidt were stripped of their leadership positions last month but remain on the board.
State law prohibits “public officers” from using their position to “secure any valuable thing or valuable benefit” that would not ordinarily accrue to a person with those official duties.
As trustees, Buividas and Scheidt had influence over the employment of Smout, who had the power to hire and fire Coleman.
Buividas and Scheidt have denied they did anything wrong, and said Coleman approached them about the real estate deal.
