SAN DIEGO -- Two former city employees are calling for more extensive investigations into the misuse of fees San Diegans pay for city utilities.

Former San Diego Water Department Code Enforcement Supervisor Dennis Howerton likes what he reads in the Kroll Report, but he wonders how much was wasted on the $20 million report.

"The city could have saved $1 million if they just listened to me two years ago when I was still employed with the city and raising these same issues,” said Howerton.

Howerton blew the whistle on a practice of raiding water and sewer funds to pay for special projects like a day-care center and for employees at City Hall.

He said it was a practice that accelerated in 1996, when Casey Gwinn was named San Diego’s city attorney.

"He had never had a client in his life. He wakes up one morning in 1996, and he's sworn in and he's got a client, which is the sixth-biggest city in the United States,” said former Deputy City Attorney Bill Newsome.

In 2004, Newsome wrote a complaint when another attorney complained how he was forced to falsify timecards, saying he did work for the water department.

Newsome lost his job a few months later, but he said Gwinn made it clear he was going to be the “yes man” for the mayor, city manager and City Council.

"If any of my lawyers say, 'No, we can't,' I'll get you another lawyer who says, 'Yes, we can.' He told us that flat-out in 1996. He said, 'That's the way it's going to be,' " said Newsome.

In return, they said Gwinn received continued support right up until his last day for something near and dear to him.

"We're talking about a vision. The vision of the family justice center -- that's really about the future,” said Gwinn in December 2004.

Gwinn and his deputies allegedly looked the other way while timecards were changed and money was siphoned off the water and sewer funds.

Using piles of contracts called Service Level Agreements, millions of dollars left the funds annually.

Newsome added, "It was given a pretty name called an SLA. It is just embezzlement."

Newsome and Howerton want the mayor and city auditor to look at every year and determine exactly how much money was improperly -- maybe even illegally -- taken from those funds.

"Just think about what would have to be refunded if you take into account the falsification of timecards and the billing fraud. Think about how much would have to be refunded if you go back 10 years,” said Howerton.

Sources told 10News $30 million was skimmed from the sewer fund in 1996 for the Republican National Convention. They said the total refund to the water and sewer funds should reach well into the tens of millions of dollars.

So far, the mayor and the county grand jury have discovered only $3 million that should go back to the water and sewer funds.

Gwinn has not responded to the allegations, but the California attorney general’s office and city attorney are investigating.