“The office was just a place [McLaughlin] stopped to delegate to everyone what to do,’’ said one housing authority employee who asked for anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “He would come in 9:45 a.m. and out by 1 p.m. or 2 p.m… . ‘I’m meeting a guy in Methuen.’ There was always a meeting for lunch or coffee.’’
Yet McLaughlin still portrayed himself as a workhorse, claiming to take so little vacation that he was eligible to sell back unused time to the authority. On the day he resigned, McLaughlin cosigned a check to himself for $81,578 for unused vacation time, a payment that would be legitimate under the terms of his contract only if he had limited himself to four vacation days annually since 2003.
McLaughlin also claimed that he almost never got sick - he reported 3.5 hours of sick time in almost 12 years - an iron constitution that led him to write a check to himself for another $114,237 on his last day as payment for years of unused sick time.
The revelations about McLaughlin’s lax work habits and questionable payments for unused vacation and sick time come amid burgeoning state and federal investigations of the housing authority, which has been taken over by a state receiver in the wake of McLaughlin’s departure and the resignation of the entire board of directors.
The FBI is investigating whether McLaughlin, a former state legislator and longtime Democratic powerbroker, illegally diverted federal funds to his own use. State housing officials tried to stop payment on the checks written to McLaughlin on his last day, but he had already cashed the one for unused vacation time.
