School board member Oshin Castillo has landed a $45,000 position as a confidential secretary to the Passaic County Board of Chosen Freeholders.
Castillo, who was elected to the Paterson Board of Education late last year, started at her new job on September 26th, 2016, according to the county. It’s not clear what her duties are for the position at the Passaic County government.
The county could not produce a job description for the post or proof of advertisement for the position last week. The county provided an employment application that was completed by Castillo.
“I have worked in an office atmosphere for years. I am very organized. I have great verbal communication skills and the ability to work independently,” wrote Castillo in the job application’s qualification section.
Castillo did not return a call for comment on Friday afternoon.
Castillo listed as references freeholder director Theodore “TJ” Best, school board president Christopher Irving, and her former boss Hector Castillo. Castillo, a city medical doctor, is seeking to oust longtime congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. for the 9th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representative.
The doctor, who is running as a Republican in next month’s election, is not related to the school board member.
She worked at the doctor’s practice — Paterson Medical LLC — from September 2015 until she was hired by Passaic County. Prior to that she worked as a business development representative at TD Bank on Valley Road in Wayne from February 2015 through September 2015, according to her resume.
Castillo worked as a “head teller” at the same bank branch from July 2012 through September 2015. Her employment history is unusual considering she earned a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Communications from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
She completed her internship at the United Nations’ Women’s Empowerment Division from August 2010 through September 2012, according to her resume.
Castillo was sworn into office in January of this year. One of her opponents in the 2015 school board election described her post as a political job.
“I don’t know where the connections are with these people, but they need to cut this out,” said Jesus Castro, who ran an abortive school board election campaign last year and serves on the Paterson Public Library Board of Trustees. “We just went up on county taxes. Paterson taxes had to go up because of county taxes. And we’re giving jobs to politicians.”
Passaic County administrator Anthony DeNova did not respond to a message seeking his input for this story.
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