WASHINGTON — A former top official for a huge New York union who is now the White House political director failed to disclose more than $37,000 in income from the union last year, it was reported yesterday.
As the former public-affairs executive for Service Employees International Union Local 1199, Patrick Gaspard earned $37,191 in carried-over pay while on the White House payroll.
He failed to disclose the income on financial-disclosure forms, Politico reported. Where arrangements for payment by a former employer must be listed on the form, he checked a box indicating he had nothing to report.
The discrepancy was caught by California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. In a letter to the White House, he told Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina of the unstated income.
“As I am sure you are aware, there are very specific limitations on the outside earned income of presidential appointees,” Issa wrote.
The administration downplayed Gaspard’s failure to include the income on this and last year’s disclosure forms. White House spokesman Bill Burton told Politico that the political director was in the process of correcting the forms to reflect that he did have an agreement for severance.
“We have made the small administrative change to this year’s and last year’s forms to indicate that part of the final payout to Patrick reflected in their typical severance of one week of pay for each of his nine years of service at Local 1199,” Burton said.
Gaspard is a key player in the Obama White House, which maintains deep ties to labor unions, especially the service-industries’ union. He worked for nearly a decade for SEIU 1199 before joining Obama’s campaign.
According to his disclosure forms, Gaspard earned $11,550 working on Obama’s transition team and made $172,200 last year as director of the Office of Political Affairs.
It was from that post that he met last September with Gov. Paterson and urged him not to seek re-election.
Gaspard’s financial-disclosure forms indicate he has $35,000 to $80,000 in credit-card debt and student loans.