(CBS 5 NEWS) - Earlier this week, CBS 5 News first told you Phoenix Fire Department Assistant Chief Steve Storment was one of two high ranking officers demoted for violating the city's ethics policy and administrative regulations.
We now know Storment and Deputy Chief Ron Dykes are accused of ignoring policy by paying Mesa Community College $60,000 to create a new training manual for special operations without getting competitive bids.
The Phoenix assistant fire chief tells CBS 5 News Storment went further by signing on as a consultant to the project for $15,000 dollars. He will have to pay that money back to the city.
Background
(CBS 5 News)--CBS 5 News got a tip Wednesday afternoon and has been searching for answers ever since.
The tip was that an assistant fire chief had been demoted two ranks and that his office had been cleaned out and repainted.
Calls to the fire department, city officials and even council members yielded very few answers.
CBS 5 news has been able to confirm through a number of independent sources that Steve Storment has been demoted. The former assistant chief is now reassigned as a battalion chief.
According to Storments bio on the Fire Department website he has been with the department for more than 30 years. He most recently directed the department's homeland defense division and he is cited as working with a number of cities across the country on Weapons of Mass Destruction response and policies under a Department of Defense Grant.
Our repeated calls to the fire department finally produced a letter. It says two command officers have been disciplined and/or reassigned as a result of an administrative investigation. The letter does not name names or give details of their violations. This story continues to develop and CBS 5 News will continue digging for more information.
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