Voters elected Dan McAllister to six consecutive terms as San Diego County’s treasurer and tax collector before his sudden retirement this month.
Those who worked alongside him recall a public official committed to improving the experience in how residents pay taxes. But court records show his behavior at work led to two sexual harassment lawsuits, with taxpayers footing the bill for a six-figure settlement in 2022.
Those contrasts paint a checkered legacy for McAllister, who held the low-profile post in county government for nearly 25 years. He was first elected to the job in 2002, defeating incumbent Bart Hartman, who had faced his own sexual harassment lawsuit while in the job.
Among other duties, San Diego County’s treasurer-tax collector oversees the county’s investments as well as the collection of billions of dollars in property taxes each year.
There, McAllister stewarded the office for years without notable scandal, winning praise from county supervisors who served while he did.
Supervisor Joel Anderson said last week he was “deeply appreciative” of McAllister’s service to the county. He declined to comment on the sexual harassment claims.
Long-serving former Supervisor Dianne Jacob said the treasurer will be remembered most for working to make the process of paying taxes as transparent as possible. “Dan has demonstrated over the years a steady hand and discipline in managing the funds he had authority over,” Jacob said in an interview.
His professional accomplishments notwithstanding, allegations about McAllister’s personal behavior in the office tell a different story.
Thirteen years apart, two women who worked in the tax collector’s office said they had to rebuff constant, unwanted romantic advances from him.
When they complained, they said, others encouraged them to quit their jobs, and his most recent accuser said a coworker even discouraged her from reporting his behavior to human resources.
“I’m grateful Dan McAllister is retiring,” Nataly Heredia, whose 2021 sexual harassment lawsuit against McAllister has not been previously reported, said in a statement to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
“I can only hope that no one else will ever have to experience what I went through under his leadership,” she said.
Before his retirement was announced, McAllister, a Republican, had been planning to launch a seventh campaign for county treasurer. At some point this year, he made a payment for professional services for his 2026 campaign committee, campaign finance disclosures show.
Now, the Board of Supervisors is set to replace McAllister with an appointed interim successor who will serve until after next year’s election.
McAllister addressed staff in a statement last month after announcing his retirement.
“From the beginning, I believe deeply in the responsibility entrusted to this office — to safeguard public funds, ensure fairness and transparency, and support the services that touch people’s lives every day,” he said. “Throughout my tenure, my appreciation has grown for how deeply fulfilling serving in this capacity would be, and how many remarkable people I have met along the way.”
McAllister did not respond to requests for comment.
The 2022 settlement
McAllister last won reelection in 2022, cruising to victory with 74% of the vote over challenger Greg Hodosevich.
But nearly two years earlier, county attorneys were already fighting Heredia’s sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit. In July 2022, the county settled with Heredia, who worked as a specialist in the tax collector’s financial division, for $105,000.
Supervisors Jim Desmond and Terra Lawson-Remer — who were on the Board of Supervisors when the panel was briefed about Heredia’s case in a closed session — did not return requests for comment.
According to Heredia’s lawsuit, McAllister made incessant, unwanted visits to her cubicle for weeks in late 2019, at times looking her up and down, trying to walk her to her car and remarking on how lonely he was.
By her account, McAllister on one occasion told her “he had never seen someone with such a welcoming smile.”
Heredia said that her boss’ singling her out for visits and conversations became something of an inside joke among others in the division of the tax collector’s office where she worked. McAllister’s infatuation led coworkers to tease her, and some would text her tip-offs when they spotted him coming to their area of the building.
Others remarked that the elected official had rarely visited their office before Heredia worked there.
The lawsuit alleged that to fend off McAllister’s attention, one male assistant manager told Heredia to start wearing turtlenecks and to tell McAllister she had a boyfriend — though in a deposition that manager denied saying this.
The lawsuit further alleges that same assistant manager discouraged Heredia from reporting McAllister’s behavior to human resources and later encouraged her to quit her job, even after she confided that the constant visits were causing her extreme anxiety and panic attacks and making it difficult to do her job.
A county HR staffer testified that during a meeting in December 2019, Heredia sobbed while describing how McAllister made her uncomfortable. The staffer did not ask for specifics, and the meeting did not prompt an investigation into Heredia’s complaints — even though McAllister was told about them.
In her statement, Heredia described the county’s handling of her complaints about McAllister as leaving her “without a voice, ignored by the very system that is supposed to protect victims.”
“The emotional toll of being silenced, unsupported and dismissed is something I still carry to this day,” Heredia said. “I now keep to myself, avoid drawing attention and live with the constant fear that standing up for myself again will label me as a liability. No one should have to feel that way, especially not in their workplace.”
After Heredia filed a state employment-discrimination claim in January 2020, the county opened an investigation into McAllister. That probe ultimately cleared him of any wrongdoing, the county HR staffer who handled it later said in a deposition.
With her anxiety growing worse and the county yet to grant her request for a transfer to her employer’s Chula Vista office, Heredia took a sick day on Jan. 23, 2020, and never returned to work.
“Getting help from you has been as terrible as the harassment itself,” she wrote in an email to county HR before quitting.
She sued one year later.
Familiar allegations
Key facts in Heredia’s case somewhat mirror what another former female employee alleged in a 2007 lawsuit.
That former employee, Suzanne Torres, alleged that McAllister hired her for a top job in his office as a way to pursue her romantically.
Between 2005 and 2006, McAllister developed “an unusual personal interest” in Torres, who had left a financial adviser job in Beverly Hills to join the treasurer-tax collector’s office as deputy treasurer-tax collector.
According to her lawsuit, to Torres’ surprise, her job duties mainly consisted of accompanying McAllister to events and having to serve as his “confidant and companion.”
Meanwhile, Torres alleged, McAllister phoned her late at night, discussed his marriage and sex life with her and struck up constant, unwanted conversations with her in the office.
She eventually complained about her job to a consultant hired by the office, who compared her duties to being McAllister’s wife and encouraged her to quit, her lawsuit said.
But according to Torres, after she complained about her job duties to McAllister, the consultant told her either to resign or to be fired.
Torres and McAllister reached a settlement in December 2007, according to court records. Attorney David Strauss, who represented her at the time, declined to elaborate on the settlement’s terms, citing confidentiality.
The county was not involved in the settlement between Torres and McAllister and did not pay her any money, said county spokesperson Sarah Sweeney.
The entire lawsuit was dismissed on the same day.
What’s next
With McAllister departing the county, the process has begun for supervisors to name an acting treasurer to serve until next year’s election.
Per board policy, interested candidates have to submit an application for the position and give an in-person pitch to supervisors. Supervisors can then name an appointee with a three-vote majority.
The board is set to weigh in on a plan for the appointment process on Aug. 26.
Until that happens, Assistant Treasurer-Tax Collector Myrna Zambrano will take on the day-to-day responsibilities of McAllister’s job, Sweeney said.
With his retirement, McAllister is the second county official to abruptly leave government since Democrats retook control of the Board of Supervisors last month.
Two days before his announcement, County Counsel Claudia Silva resigned following a snap performance review with supervisors.