Former San Francisco official Tajel Shah systematically bypassed ethics rules, according to a new investigation jointly published Tuesday by the offices of the controller and city attorney.
Shah, who served as the city’s chief assistant treasurer from 2017 until 2025, bypassed the city’s procurement policies to steer a $7 million contract toward a friend’s software company, Mechanical Orchard, in 2023 and 2024, according to the investigation.
The allegations were made public last year when the San Francisco Standard published details of a whistleblower report about Shah and her relationship with Mechanical Orchard’s then-chief revenue officer, Roque Versace. Shah was placed on paid leave the same day the article was published, and left the job two months later.
According to the city investigation, Shah bypassed a competitive process by hiring Mechanical Orchard to conduct a $65,000 “discovery project” to assess feasibility and expected costs associated with updating the city’s business tax system.
Following the discovery project, Mechanical Orchard was one of several companies up for the $7 million city contract to revamp the business tax software, and ultimately won “due to the improper interference of Shah,” the city investigation reads.
Both the San Francisco Standard article and the city investigation detail another conflict of interest: Ratio PBC, a subcontractor that worked with Mechanical Orchard on the discovery project, subsequently hired Shah’s niece.
“Preventing bias, favoritism, and the misuse of public funds requires every individual to recognize their ethical responsibility to speak up against wrongdoing — and that needs to happen in an environment where transparency and collective accountability are non-negotiable in every part of our government,” said Controller Greg Wagner, in a press release. “The findings point to an effort to undermine the integrity of the procurement process, and underscore why organizational culture and professional competency are our strongest lines of defense.”
The city investigation details several ways in which Shah gave Mechanical Orchard’s bid an unfair advantage: Shah shared information unavailable to other bidders, did not require staff to verify the company’s minimum qualifications, altered the scoring method to improve Mechanical Orchard’s ranking, and added additional unsubstantiated costs to competing bids to inaccurately portray competing bidders as more expensive.
Shah also failed to disclose the relationship between herself and Mechanical Orchard’s Chief Revenue Officer, and “understated her role and involvement” with the bidding process.
The city investigation noted that the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector had an organizational structure that contributed to a lack of checks and balances. Shah purportedly had a management style “largely defined by intimidation” and oversaw most of the department’s operational teams, including the HR team, which “discouraged staff from bringing concerns about Shah to HR.”
Mechanical Orchards withdrew from negotiating the software contract the day before the San Francisco Standard first published the allegations about Shah’s relationship with the firm.
Roque Versace is no longer working at Mechanical Orchard, according to his LinkedIn profile, which indicates that he left in January 2025 to work at a software company in London.
Shah is no longer working at the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector; she was “released” from that position on November 21, 2025, according to the Controller’s Office.
The original contract for that business tax software update will be closed. According to the press release from the Controller’s Office, The Officer of the Treasurer and Tax Collector is “committed to restarting the process with proper procedures in place and in a fair and transparent, competitive process.”