JCOPE Settles Public Officers Law Violation with Former MTA Employee

The New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics (“Commission”)  today announced that it has reached a settlement agreement with a former employee of  the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (“MTA”) for violating the Public Officers Law by underreporting his outside income from a tax preparation business and for misusing MTA resources in conducting activities for that same business.

In the agreement,  Shivanand Kalipersadsingh, a former finance manager for MTA’s Business Services Center, admitted that he underreported income on both his 2018 and 2019 financial disclosure statements by not including income received for the outside tax preparation business he is a principal in and for which his wife also works. Specifically, he reported for both years that his income was between $1,000 and $5,000 and his wife’s was between $20,000 and $50,000, when in reality, their combined income from that venture was more than four times the amount reported in 2018 and more than three times what was reported in 2019.

Kalipersadsingh further admitted that between 2018 and 2020, he misused MTA resources for his outside business venture, using his MTA email account to send and receive tax preparation business emails and storing documents for the outside business on his MTA desktop computer.

Under the settlement, Kalipersadsingh, who has since retired from the MTA, agreed to pay $8,000 to settle the violations of the Public Officers Law and to submit accurate financial disclosure statements for 2018 and 2019 within 60 days of execution of the settlement.

The case was referred to the Commission by the Office of the MTA Inspector General following its own investigation.

To read more about this settlement agreement, click on the ‘Investigations’ tab, and then go to ‘Enforcement Actions.’