It happened fast. One day Sheryl Davis was the face of San Francisco’s most ambitious equity program, and the next, she was out. If you live in the city, you’ve probably heard the name. You might even know the broad strokes: the Dream Keeper Initiative, the Human Rights Commission (HRC), and a sudden, messy resignation in September 2024. But honestly, the details that have come out since then are much weirder and more complicated than a simple "bureaucrat quits" headline.
By the time the dust settled in late 2025, a massive city audit and a series of ethics charges painted a picture of a department that basically operated like a private checkbook. We’re talking $4.6 million in misspent funds. We’re talking about trips to Martha's Vineyard and even, bizarrely, a $5,000 oil painting of Davis herself.
The Dream Keeper Fallout
To understand why this matters, you have to understand what Sheryl Davis was actually doing. She wasn’t just a department head. She was the architect of the Dream Keeper Initiative (DKI). This was Mayor London Breed’s signature plan to take $120 million from law enforcement budgets and reinvest it into the city’s Black community. It was supposed to be a revolution in how city government works.
Instead, the HRC became a hub of "noncontract payments." Essentially, Davis found a way to bypass the usual red tape that keeps city spending in check.
According to the 2025 audit from Controller Greg Wagner and City Attorney David Chiu, the HRC’s spending on these "Prop Q" purchases—which are supposed to be for small, one-time needs—exploded. We’re talking about a 600% increase in just four years. They were splitting invoices, keeping them just under $10,000 to avoid having to get approval from anyone else.
The James Spingola Connection
The real "wait, what?" moment came when reporters discovered Davis’s relationship with James Spingola. Spingola ran a nonprofit called Collective Impact. For years, Davis and Spingola shared a home and a car. That’s a massive conflict of interest in any city, but especially in San Francisco, where Davis was personally signing off on $1.5 million in grants to his organization.
Davis has called herself a "failed bureaucrat," which is a pretty interesting way to put it. She told Mission Local she was too focused on the community to care about the "arcane" rules of city accounting.
But the audit found things that feel a lot less like "accounting errors" and a lot more like personal perks.
- $19,000 for her son’s graduate school tuition at UCLA, paid via a grant to Collective Impact.
- $38,000 on alcohol.
- Luxury hotel stays and even a house rental on Martha’s Vineyard.
- A $5,000 portrait of herself, gifted by another nonprofit, Urban Ed Academy, right before she gave them a $270,000 grant.
The Martha’s Vineyard Mystery
The Martha’s Vineyard trip is one of those details that stuck in everyone's craw. In August 2024, Davis and a few colleagues headed to the island for a "philanthropic conference." The city ended up footing a bill for a $10,000 house rental that was supposedly for interns, though the audit found the interns never actually used it.
The Ethics Commission eventually hit her with 31 pages of charges in November 2025. It wasn't just about the money being spent; it was about the culture. Investigators say Davis created an environment where staff didn't dare question where the money was going. If she wanted 500 tickets to a Giants game or a full restaurant buyout for a "healing retreat," it just happened.
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What’s the Situation Now?
Things are different in 2026. The Human Rights Commission has new leadership. Mawuli Tugbenyoh, who had been the acting director since the day Davis resigned, was officially appointed to the permanent role by Mayor Daniel Lurie in September 2025.
The Dream Keeper Initiative isn't dead, but it's much smaller. Lurie's administration put in way stricter guardrails. They slashed the funding to about $36 million over three years. It's a far cry from the original $120 million, but the goal is to make sure the money actually reaches the people it was meant for, rather than being swallowed up by "administrative" costs and galas.
As for Davis? She’s still in the middle of a legal storm. Between the Ethics Commission's "mini-trial" to determine fines and a criminal investigation by the District Attorney’s office, this story isn't over. Her lawyer, Tony Brass, maintains she never intended to "personally enrich herself," but the paper trail of first-class flight upgrades and tuition payments makes that a hard sell for the public.
Actionable Steps for SF Residents
If you’re a San Francisco resident or someone who follows city politics, here’s how to stay informed and stay active regarding oversight:
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- Monitor the Ethics Commission: You can follow the formal proceedings against Sheryl Davis on the SF Ethics Commission website. They publish the charging documents and the results of their hearings.
- Read the Controller’s Reports: The "HRC Prop Q Audit Report" is a public document. It’s dense, but it shows exactly how the "invoice splitting" worked. Reading it helps you understand what "red flags" to look for in other city departments.
- Watch the Board of Supervisors: The funding for the revamped Dream Keeper Initiative is debated in public budget hearings. If you want to see how Mayor Lurie is changing the guardrails, that’s where the real work happens.
- Utilize the Whistleblower Program: If you work for or with a city-funded nonprofit and see something that doesn't look right, San Francisco has an official Whistleblower Program run by the Controller’s Office. It's one of the few ways these kinds of "unethical cultures" get exposed before they cost millions.
The Sheryl Davis saga serves as a reminder that even the most well-intentioned programs can fail without transparency. For a city like San Francisco, the challenge now isn't just spending the money—it's rebuilding the trust that the money won't end up paying for someone else’s portrait.