Metro

Exclusive: De Blasio’s ‘nanny state’ – used government staffers as free child care, sources say

Mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio has a novel way of getting free child care: Use government staff.

The city’s public advocate relied on employees to tend to his children when he was a member of the City Council and the kids were young, multiple sources have told The Post.

Employees in his Brooklyn council office, which he occupied from 2002 through 2009, were often asked to watch his son and daughter at the office after school let out and even to pick them up occasionally, the sources said.

“I remember a couple of times I would have to go to the house to watch them,” said one source.

“Sometimes staff would get a heads-up a day in advance or when they would get a scheduling meeting. He would say, ‘Well, I have this meeting. The kids are going to need a pickup.’ familiar with the inner workings of his council office

“I do distinctly remember a staff member having to get a letter authorizing her to pick up the kids [from school] because they were very young then,” the source said, adding that the rides occurred several times a month during work hours and that one staffer in particular “absolutely hated it.”

A second source said de Blasio’s staff often tended to the children at council-related evening events while de Blasio worked.

Dante and Chiara, who are now 15 and 18 years old, are often on the campaign trail with their dad.

“I’d see him at community-board meetings and I’d see his staff … You’d see them watching Dante,” the source said.

De Blasio insists that he always watched his children himself when they were in the office or when he took them to an event.

DeBlasio said further he could only remember one former staffer ever picking them up from school, and that was after she left his employ and volunteered to do so on several occasions.

But when pressed on the after-school pickups, he added that “there may have been a couple of times in an emergency where a staff member may have stepped in to help.”

At the office, “I would be there; they would color in the coloring book. Staff was in the room, but I was there making sure the kids were OK,” he said.

The de Blasio campaign provided The Post with seven former staffers who said that they were never asked to look after the kids.

“I never saw staff asked to baby-sit, pick up, or take care of the de Blasio children,” said Josh Wallack, legislative director from 2002 through 2006.

“To the contrary, I remember many days when Bill carefully arranged his schedule in order to pick them up himself and take care of them himself.”

Ironically, in a campaign video this year, de Blasio emphasized the quality time spent with his family.

“I really go out of my way to make sure I can drive Dante to school as much as possible. And my staff understands that that’s something I try and keep sacred,” he says in the online video.