An investigative report from the office of State Auditor Dave Boliek published Thursday provides the most granular detail yet about a pattern of excessive, often frivolous spending by Town of Cary employees under former town manager Sean Stegall, which went unchecked by the town council.
The report mainly focuses on procurement card, or p-card, spending. Investigators opened Cary’s books and found that the town issued 828 p-cards to 62% of its staff, who collectively spent a staggering $24.2 million over a two-year period from January 1, 2024 and December 31, 2025. P-cards are credit cards issued to town employees for work-related purchases.
At a press conference in Raleigh on Thursday, Boliek attributed the excessive p-card charges to “a culture of extravagant spending of tax dollars” that extended beyond Stegall as an individual.
Cary’s use of p-cards was unusual compared to its peers. The report noted that comparable North Carolina municipalities issued p-cards to between 10% and 33% of their staff.
The bulk of the p-card spending fell into three broad categories: “retail outlet services” ($8.3 million), “miscellaneous stores” ($4.4 million), and “business services” ($3.7 million). Food, drink, and travel expenses accounted for $2.2 million total.
The p-card expenditures led investigators to look into Cary’s overall financial health. They found that the town ran operating deficits in fiscal years 2023 and 2024, with operating expenses outpacing operating revenues by $8.5 million the first year and $27.2 million the second. Investigators also calculated that Cary’s fund balance, which is essentially its emergency savings account, dropped below the policy minimum in those years. Stegall reportedly misled the town council about this, telling members in 2025 that Cary had “never” violated its fund balance policy.
The report also offers more insight into Stegall’s workplace conduct. Town staff and council members told the investigators he engaged in “intimidation, pressure, bullying, and erratic behavior.” A council member told investigators that Stegall did not allow her to voice her concerns and threatened to shut down projects in her district if she did. Town Clerk Virginia Johnson told investigators “[You] never go against [Stegall]. … You could never say no to him. If you did, you were picked on, you were marginalized, all these things.”
The investigators were unimpressed by the Cary Town Council’s financial oversight. “During our investigation, it became apparent…that the Council’s approach to financial matters was to delegate them to a small number of people while limiting its own information and involvement,” the report reads. “Outside of the Director of Finance and the Town Manager, the tendency of the Council appeared to be to remain hands-off where budget planning was concerned and to focus instead on other matters.
“This method of operation had obvious negative effects, the most visible being the use of fund balance resources and the reallocation of funds as the budget was generally repeatedly amended throughout the year,” the report continues. “Instead of putting an emphasis on planning the budget collaboratively, the Council was satisfied with Mr. Stegall providing a recommended budget which they then amended as the year progressed and needs arose.”
(Since Stegall resigned, the Town Council has appeared to be more focused on financial transparency and oversight.)
Here are some of the report’s major, new findings:
- Cary spent $2,206 on a “bond watch party” for staff, presumably to watch the results of the 2024 bond referendums come in. (Both referendums failed, largely because Cary residents thought they were too expensive.)
- Employees charged expensive meals to their p-cards. The report highlighted a $490 meal for two in Atlanta charged to Stegall’s p-card. A picture of the receipt shows two $120 ribeye steaks and a $48 glass of wine, among other items. Stegall tipped $100.
- Cary paid $5,843 in cancellation fees at the Courtyard by Marriott in Cary for a quarterly council meeting scheduled for May 2025.
- Cary paid $1,638 in no-show charges for three hotel rooms in Pittsburgh charged to Stegall’s p-card in June 2024.
- The town paid $1,600 for 10 pairs of Cary-branded Ray-Ban sunglasses which Town Clerk Virginia Johnson told investigators were for council members. The report quotes the clerk as saying that Stegall “wanted the highest of the high, so he demanded that we get the highest level of sunglasses that we could get.” Johnson added, “things that we got [the] council, we would also give [Stegall].”
- $733 for an “executive van” from Cary Town Hall to a golf course in Holly Springs for the 2024 Wake County Mayors Association Holiday dinner, an approximately 12-mile trip.
- $305 for hotel room for a Raleigh-based social media influencer who attended Lazy Daze and posted about it on Instagram, tagging the Town of Cary.
- Cary spent $121,314 on video production for its 2024 council-staff retreat in Wilmington. The INDY previously reported that one documentary-style video that came out of this retreat titled “Dancing Queens: A Case Study” cost the town $34,975 to produce. The hotel expenses for the Wilmington trip totaled $74,173.29. Total payments to P Media, which helped produce the Dancing Queen videos, came to $340,664.58. Boliek said Thursday that his office will post the full 30-minute video online so that taxpayers can “see exactly what they paid for.”
The report also documents several previously-reported transactions:
- Stegall expensed a four-night, $3,400 hotel stay in 2024.
- Cary paid $37,000 for council member Lori Bush’s graduate school tuition. Bush paid the full amount back after she learned the entire council hadn’t been aware of the payment.
- Stegall purchased two properties worth over $1 million total in 2024 without the full town council’s approval and against his staff’s recommendation.
The report recommends that Cary adopt a stricter, more detailed p-card policy and strengthen its internal financial controls. In a response appended to the report, the town said it is reviewing its current policies and researching best practices to update them. The town’s response emphasized that Cary is thriving and nationally-respected. “The Town of Cary is a great organization filled with amazing people doing very good things,” the statement reads in part. “Our former town manager is just that—former.”
How Cary got here
The Cary Town Council placed Stegall on paid administrative leave in late November and he resigned in mid-December.
After Stegall’s resignation, the town announced he had engaged in “over-the-top spending and inadequate financial reporting” and created an “unhealthy work environment” for staff. Whistleblowers had reported Stegall to Mayor Harold Weinbrecht, who told the INDY in January he learned the former manager’s workplace behavior had been “unpredictable” and “inappropriate.”
Before Boliek’s audit, we already knew that Stegall, in the words of his former colleague, Cary chief strategy officer Susan Moran, “lacked good judgment when it came to spending.” His discretionary budget ballooned to $1 million over the course of his decade as town manager, according to the mayor. Stegall expensed a $3,400 hotel stay during a 2023 work trip. In 2025, Cary paid upwards of $100,000 to ghostwrite, independently publish and market Stegall’s book about municipal government leadership, which sold fewer than 150 copies. Stegall depleted Cary’s fund balance and shrank the budget department. In the last five years of his tenure, he commissioned $330,000 worth of documentary-style videos about Cary which were never intended for public viewing.
Stegall’s protégé, assistant town manager Dan Ault, quietly resigned in January. In February, a public records request unearthed a police report from 2016 that named Stegall in connection to a drug surveillance operation; officers suspected at the time that a man driving a car registered in his name could be a drug dealer, but they didn’t charge him. The State Bureau of Investigation is currently reexamining that case at the direction of the Wake County attorney general’s office.
As more details of Stegall’s misdeeds came into public view following his resignation, Cary’s elected leaders and top staff said they felt betrayed by their former colleague. Weinbrecht told the INDY he’d considered Stegall a friend and had ignored some red flags as a result.
And Weinbrecht wasn’t alone in trusting Stegall. He was apparently well-liked in town hall for most of his tenure. He helped raise Cary’s national profile, overseeing a period of deliberate, healthy growth. He established the 311 service and got Downtown Cary park to the finish line. He celebrated and praised his staff, even as he depleted the town’s savings and dismantled the budget and communications offices.
Multiple investigations
The state auditor’s investigation is the first of four parallel investigations into Stegall’s conduct to be completed and made public. Still ongoing are investigations by the Wake County District Attorney’s Office, the SBI, and a law firm hired by the town.
Boliek’s office began its investigation in November, days after the Cary Town Council placed Stegall on administrative leave and before he resigned, according to a statement previously shared with the INDY.
In mid-January, Boliek met with Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman and the director of the State Bureau of Investigation to talk about Cary. In that meeting, Boliek reportedly shared that “an initial forensic analysis…indicates potential criminal activity” by Stegall in the form of potentially fraudulent procurement card transactions.
After the January meeting, Boliek gave a statement that his office would continue working with the DA and law enforcement “to be as useful as possible in providing information that may support any prosecution of criminal activity.”
The investigative report doesn’t identify any potential criminal activity by Stegall or any other member of Cary town government. At the press conference, Boliek confirmed his office’s report is separate from the Wake DA’s ongoing criminal investigation.
Boliek criticized the Cary town council’s failure to ask “tough questions” of Stegall. But he said the members cooperated with the investigation and seem to have adopted a “fresh attitude” about fostering accountability within town government.
“I urge all council members and mayors to err on the side of micromanagement,” Boliek said. “That’s what was really needed here.”
In response to the report, Cary scheduled an emergency council meeting and press conference for Thursday evening “to discuss the Town’s response and the steps it’s taking to strengthen accountability and increase transparency.”
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