Top SF Public Works Official Retires Amid $100 Million Overcharging Scandal

Julia Dawson, the chief financial officer at the San Francisco Department of Public Works, retired Friday amid the still ongoing investigation into what city officials knew about $100 million in overcharges by the Recology garbage hauling firm…

Dawson spent 24 years working for the city, seven and a half years of them at Public Works, as well as earlier stints at the airport, fire department, municipal transportation agency and the department of parking and traffic…

In March, City Attorney Dennis Herrera announced a $100 million settlement with Recology over customer overbilling. The company says was due to an error in how it accounted for its revenues…

After Porter acknowledged at the meeting in December 2018 that the company had indeed been undercounting revenue, Dawson enlisted an outside consultant to study the issue in 2019, records show. However, record shows Dawson failed to alert the public -even after that outside consultant confirmed the overbilling in early 2020.

Gordon said while the city’s probes continue, “we see no criminal wrongdoing in the investigations so far involving Julia Dawson.”…(more)