BOSTON — Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey did not mince words regarding 25 Investigates’ bombshell exposé detailing how top-earning MassDOT highway maintenance workers have been billing taxpayers for overtime hours that did not appear to add up.
“Any time somebody is ripping off the public, ripping off taxpayers, I am outraged,” Healey said Thursday. “I hope whatever the investigation yields, know that they’re going to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
During a 231-day undercover investigation that began in September 2025, 25 Investigates uncovered a systemic pattern of questionable overtime billing among the top-earning maintenance workers at a MassDOT District Six facility in Charlestown.
The employee monitored by 25 Investigates with the lowest amount of extra hours still managed to make nearly $100,000 strictly in overtime last year.
Zachary Fuller, the state’s highest earning “Highway Maintenance Worker II” statewide, raked in a total compensation package of $240,000, nearly triple his base salary with overtime.
Two days after 25 Investigates presented its findings to state officials, MassDOT confirmed it had placed seven employees on administrative leave and launched an internal investigation.
When asked if she believed higher-ups were complicit, Healey said she ordered MassDOT Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver to get to the bottom of the issue and that she has a zero tolerance for any type of fraud involving taxpayers’ money.
“I work with people across state government, local government, federal government, who show up every day and do their jobs and work really hard. And that’s what the public deserves. That’s what the public expects,” Healey continued. “But boy, when I saw that, I went through the roof.”
Gulliver admitted to 25 Investigates’ Ted Daniel that the blatant discrepancies were a systemic failure.
“There is very clearly a breakdown there that happened,” Gulliver said. “We don’t know where it happened yet. That’s part of why we’re going to go through that investigation.”
Seven employees are currently on administrative leave while a MassDOT probe takes place.
Both Healey and Gulliver have told 25 Investigates that the state will explore criminal prosecution against any worker definitively proven to have falsified their timecards.
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