Seven MassDOT – MassDOT placed seven employees on administrative leave after a months-long investigation found workers allegedly falsified timesheets to claim overtime, with undercover reporting tracking vehicle departures from the agency’s Charlestown yard and comparing them
On the morning shift ends, highway maintenance crews in Charlestown usually head home. But in a weeks-to-months long investigation, a Boston TV station kept watching what happened after the yard gate — and what it never saw.
The investigation placed seven Massachusetts Department of Transportation employees on administrative leave. alleging that some high-earning workers falsified timesheets to cash in on overtime. A MassDOT spokesperson said the agency launched an investigation and that the employees have been placed on administrative leave.
“MassDOT takes any allegation of improperly reporting time worked extremely seriously. Not only do we expect all employees to accurately report time worked and supervisors to properly review and certify time records — it’s the law. ” the spokesperson said. “If anyone is found to have been intentionally misreporting their time or misusing taxpayer dollars, they will be held accountable.”.
The probe began after reporters logged departure times from the MassDOT District Six facility in Charlestown and compared them to timesheets obtained through public record requests. The investigation focused on Highway Maintenance Worker II employees, including the highest earner in the group.
Undercover reporting tracked employees’ personal vehicles leaving the yard. The station reported watching the cars leave the Charlestown facility and observing the vehicles outside workers’ homes. In the account that followed. reporters found multiple cases where top earners allegedly left in their personal vehicles hours before their shifts were recorded as ending.
One of the workers at the center of the investigation earned about $84,000 in base salary in 2025, but the overtime reported for him totaled $149,000. The investigation said that when he claimed he was working overtime until 3:30 p.m., his car left the facility before noon on multiple days.
Another employee, the investigation reported, brought in $137,000 in overtime. His timesheet said he was on the clock, but his vehicle was seen leaving the facility.
A third employee, the station reported, submitted nearly 1,700 hours of overtime last year, earning an additional $100,000. The investigation described six different occasions in which that worker’s vehicle was seen leaving the facility.
The overtime descriptions on the timesheets, according to the investigation, included tasks such as weed wacking, pouring a “bench pad,” organizing the yard, and washing and cleaning trucks.
When confronted by reporters, some of the workers declined to comment. Another worker, who earned $97,000 in overtime last year, said he does work the hours he recorded.
The investigation’s account also pointed to a gap it said never closed: “25 Investigates never witnessed an employee return to the yard after departing in their personal vehicle.” Yet, the report said, agency records showed every overtime hour was approved by a supervisor.
For now, MassDOT’s administrative leave action and investigation put the dispute squarely where it always lands in these cases — on whether time was accurately reported and properly certified, and what happens next if the allegations are substantiated.
MassDOT District Six Charlestown overtime timesheets administrative leave highway maintenance workers