The DTA remains embroiled in negative headlines surrounding food stamp fraud, including the recent arrest of Gov. Maura Healey’s jailed former aide on SNAP fraud charges, as hundreds of staffers pull in six-figure salaries with soaring overtime.

A total of 597 Department of Transitional Assistance employees are taking in annual salaries over $100,000, with the highest-paid racking up over $348,000 — nearly double DTA Commissioner Michael Cole’s $186,799 pay, according to state Comptroller data.

Many feel the highly-paid DTA has not shown a return on the state’s investment when it comes to the mismanagement of the SNAP program, as it has allowed excessive fraud and waste to run rampant, leaving the burden of detecting it over the past two years to the state Auditor’s and U.S. Attorney’s offices.

The most recent example, and perhaps most embarrassing for the DTA, came on Wednesday when ex-Healey aide LaMar Cook was arrested on federal SNAP and wire fraud charges.

Cook had been apparently collecting $546 per week in SNAP benefits after allegedly lying on his application about his income and employment status, who he was living with and their incomes, and how much money he currently had in his bank accounts, the feds charge.

U.S. Attorney Leah Foley slammed Massachusetts officials and the DTA for failing to uncover the fraud allegedly perpetrated by Cook and for leaving it up to the feds to probe his activity. She also questioned how Cook was allowed to collect the benefits while facing serious state drug trafficking and gun charges.

Foley said her office opened an investigation into Cook after reading the Herald’s exclusive reporting on his SNAP-funded trip to Walt Disney World Resort in Kissimmee, Fla., back in July, adding that the DTA could have done the same.

“In July, when there was a report that this person was using his SNAP card, which was administered to him by the DTA, and he was in Disney World, they could have in one second pulled up on their computer his card and seen where he was using it,” Foley said during an appearance on the Howie Carr Show. “They could have then asked him to verify if he was still unemployed and had less than $100 in his bank account. They didn’t. They did not.”

“It appears there was no investigation done (by the DTA). It’s all self-verifying. He said it, so therefore it must be true,” she continued. “They could have seized the money that was in his accounts, and he had more than one, to claw back the money that the state says they ‘mistakenly’ gave him to pay for his vacation.”

When it comes to DTA caseworkers, who are responsible for enrolling clients, managing accounts, and detecting signs of potential fraud, CTHRU recorded the $348,534 in take-home pay of SNAP caseworker Michelle Burgos, far and away the highest paid in her position and of all of the DTA’s 2,000 listed employees.

When asked to explain, the DTA refused to divulge the specific reasons behind Burgos’ incredibly high pay, only telling the Herald that the majority, $269,118, comes from a backpay requirement under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, while her annual salary is set at $79,416.

The DTA did not divulge specifics related to Burgos’ significant total in back payments, a figure only about $8,500 less than her $277,699 in take-home pay from the previous nine years combined.

The highest annual salary for a DTA caseworker is $196,585, with the average pay for the 144 full-time SNAP caseworkers is $57,767. The agency has a total of 513 SNAP caseworkers.

Aside from the anomaly that is Burgos, a notable 597 DTA employees representing 29% of the agency’s total workforce took in over $100,000 last year.

Meanwhile, as a whole, overtime spending in the DTA has jumped by over $3 million from 2025. Last year, the agency paid out $13.10 million in overtime, compared to the $16.48 million recorded so far this year by the Comptroller.

In February, the Herald reported on claims by a DTA whistleblower detailing several concerns with the DTA’s upper management and leadership, including setting a “tone of normalcy” surrounding drastic increases in SNAP-EBT fraud throughout the state and “in spite of intermittent outcries from staff.”

The staffer also shared internal documents showing efforts to convince leadership to root out fraud and abuse within the program.

“I’ve tried to go through the proper channels to speak to supervisors and managers about patterns that are just as blatant as they can be and there’s a lot of pressure to just sort of push things down and say, ‘you know, they’ve got someone who does that. It’s not your department, that’s not your role,’” the whistleblower told the Herald.

In addition to the fraud, the DTA’s own mistakes have led to tens of millions of dollars in payment errors, which could potentially cost Massachusetts taxpayers upwards of $300 million in federal penalties.

Under new requirements from the Trump administration, any states with SNAP payment error rates over 6% will be required to pay the federal government back for all of the losses. This year, Massachusetts has a 12% payment error rate, down a bit from last year’s 14%.

Healey has refused to turn over SNAP recipient information to the Trump administration for what it says is to “root out waste, fraud and abuse.”

In total, the DTA serves 909,806 SNAP clients, good enough for one in every seven Massachusetts residents. Of that total, a count of 305,156 of them are 18 years old or younger. On average, the state pays $323 per household per month in SNAP benefits.

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