This winter, when town staff were trying to put together a budget for the current fiscal year, Apex was $6 million in the hole in utility balances.
A cyberattack in the summer of 2024 meant that the town had had to reconfigure its billing systems, and customers were receiving combined two- and three-month utility bills, which, along with annual rate increases, caused confusion over higher payments. The town had paused late fee collections and service disconnections, but the situation was becoming untenable: about 15% of customers had foregone paying their bills entirely. The financial stability of Apex’s electric utilities was compromised, and the town’s credit rating was threatened.
“There is concern that if we don’t soon make it clear we do intend to collect on unpaid balances, one could argue we would be in violation of the covenants on some utility bonds we’ve borrowed,” wrote Mayor Pro Tem Terry Mahaffey in a February 26 email to constituents. “Meaning the bondholders could demand immediate payment in full. Which would be ruinous.”
Apex announced it would resume normal billing operations, including collecting late fees and disconnecting utility services for nonpayment, on July 1 of this year. It offered interest-free payment plans to all customers and payment assistance to some.
Meanwhile, an annual audit of the town’s finances made public at the end of May suggests an elected official was one of the utility account holders who at some point had owed the town money, and for seemingly long enough—or in an amount high enough—that it came to an outside examiner’s attention.
On June 25, according to public records obtained by the INDY, Apex Town Manager Randy Vosburg wrote an email to Jon Griffin, the town’s finance director, about a phone call from Apex Mayor Jacques Gilbert to one of the town’s external auditors.
“Do you think I need/should reach out to them?,” Vosburg wrote. “I am still digesting the nature of his contact … Did they say he was seeking clarification or was it more questioning the findings? Was it just on the p-card transactions and wage garnishing comments? Anything else you remember? Trying to decide if there is any action I need to follow up with, or if I need to discuss anything with council or mayor.”
The Town of Apex had, just one month prior, received a clean audit opinion from the firm Cherry Bekaert for the 2025 fiscal year, which covers July 1, 2024 to July 1, 2025. But the auditors had flagged three issues—known as financial performance indicators of concern—in their report and presentation of their findings to the town council.
The first point of concern was that the town’s own internal audit was submitted to Cherry Bekaert late. The second was that the town “did not always comply with its policies” on the use and review of procurement cards (or P-cards, essentially credit cards issued to town staff or elected officials). The third point of concern was that the town didn’t comply with a state law mandating that municipalities garnish the wages of elected officials who owed the town money for its services.
The day after the audit presentation to the council, Griffin emailed all council members and the mayor with Cherry Bekaert’s findings. He noted the report was sent to the Local Government Commission (LGC) in the State Treasurer’s Office for review and to the credit rating agencies that maintain Apex’s bond ratings.
The next morning, Gilbert emailed Vosburg to ask about the process of “presenting questions and challenging possible inaccurate information to the audit firm,” according to public records obtained by the INDY. Citing language from the auditor’s report about the firm’s responsibilities, Gilbert questioned Cherry Bekaert’s process for carrying out the audit, though he wasn’t specific about any concerns.
“Based on the process of how this is done every year, there is a meeting set up with the audit firm with the mayor and questions are presented,” Gilbert wrote. “I don’t recall the process being completed in the same manner as in with previous years. In those years the audit firm would present any questions or concerns to me.
“I think this is even more important as we paid this firm with an expectation of fair and accurate service,” Gilbert’s email concluded.
While the auditors’ report didn’t specify what town service had gone unpaid by an elected official, emails obtained by the INDY and the town’s written response to the audit point to unpaid utility bills.
According to Griffin’s response to Vosburg’s June 25 email, Gilbert’s phone call to the lead auditor, Lee Ann Watters, occurred on June 23. In his email, Griffin relayed to Vosburg that Watters called to touch base with him about a half hour after speaking with the mayor.
“Lee Ann said he specifically was inquiring about: Concerns about the unpaid utility bill note (questioning why it was presented given the general policy, whether it was appropriate, and I believe questioning what elected officials it applied to),” Griffin wrote on June 30. (Watters did not respond to an email requesting comment.)
Griffin said the mayor also brought up “Concerns about the pcard disclosure (concern that the note/presentation implied wrongdoing/inappropriate activity).”
The mayor also asked about “the lateness of the audit, whether the staff (and public explanations) provided for the completion of it were accurate, and she said she provided the same explanations consistent with what were on the LGC paperwork and discussed at the meeting(s),” Griffin wrote.
Griffin added that the mayor wanted to know specifically what the auditors looked at and questioned how the financial performance indicators of concern were brought to their attention; he said the mayor asked Watters for a document explaining those points, to which Watters responded “that it would be inappropriate for Cherry Bekaert to put anything more in writing than they already had with their official opinion letters,” according to Griffin.
Griffin concluded by stating that Watters directed Gilbert back to the town since town staff already had to prepare a response document for the LGC. He said he hadn’t heard from her since.
Apex’s P-card policy has come under scrutiny recently and town staff are currently working on a new policy governing P-card usage that’s expected to go before the town council soon. While some town staff members have or had access to P-cards, the INDY reported in October that, out of all the town council members, only the mayor had access to a P-card. While the auditors noted that the town did not always comply with its own policies regarding P-card usage, they did not specify who or if any staff member or elected official was misusing a P-card.
Still, an analysis of Gilbert’s P-card purchases since 2024 showed some questionable spending on the mayor’s part, including $375 to a porta-potty company, $343.20 to a local arts and crafts store, $402.14 to a hotel in Wilmington, $598.30 to a Hilton hotel, and hundreds of dollars to local restaurants.
Gilbert, who is paid $22,078 annually as mayor and receives a monthly stipend of $319.58 from the town, defended his P-card purchases by saying the town’s policies were unclear. He has also stated publicly that he never asked for a P-card; instead, one was given to him by the town clerk when he first took office in 2019, he said.
“There is no process. There has never been a process to what they’re talking about,” he told the INDY about Apex’s P-card policy last fall. (Gilbert did not respond to emails from the INDY requesting an interview for this story).
In a November email to the town clerk, an administrator in Apex’s finance department confirmed that Gilbert’s card was suspended.
It’s also likely that Gilbert is the elected official who owed money to the town during the 2025 fiscal year. While he did not respond to an email from the INDY asking him to confirm, if accurate, that he never owed money to the town for services during his tenure, four of his colleagues did.
Former town council members Brett Gantt and Audra Killingsworth, and current council members Terry Mahaffey and Arno Zegerman, all confirmed in writing that they never owed money to the town while in office (or during the 2025 fiscal year).
Councilmember Ed Gray was the only other elected official who did not respond to the INDY’s inquiry.
Following the fallout from the cyberattack, Gilbert’s colleagues on the council criticized him publicly for spreading misinformation about the town’s billing operations on social media. Gilbert called the billing operations a “crisis” and continued to post about it on social media for months after the town had gotten a handle on the issue by transitioning to a new billing system in July 2025 and replacing outdated water and electric meters.
A third-party review in October 2025 found that most utilities customers in Apex had been underbilled, with $33.46 being the highest amount a customer was overbilled, and $12.05 being the average amount customers were overbilled.
Still, the mayor continued to insist the situation was “not yet fully resolved,” and some residents continued not to pay their bills.
“Apex, I’ve received many emails and calls … regarding utility bills that appear inaccurate, unusually high, and accompanied by advanced due dates,” Gilbert wrote in a Facebook post on March 22. “Upon opening my own bill, I see mine is unusually higher than average as well.”
On July 22, town staff drafted a response to the independent auditor’s findings. According to North Carolina’s administrative code, a municipality is required to submit a signed response to the LGC when an independent auditor identifies deficiencies in the audit, including any financial performance indicators of concern.
The document, which was shared with the INDY this week, is addressed to the LGC’s secretary, Denise Canada, and distributed to the mayor and council for them to sign. On July 28, Gilbert was the second to last member of the council to sign the document. Councilmember Arno Zegerman signed it the next day and it was sent.
In the document, the town lays out its reasons for being late to submit its internal audit, not complying with its P-card usage policy, and not complying with the state statute requiring towns to garnish the wages of elected officials who haven’t paid for town services.
The cybersecurity attack created challenges that delayed access to financial information and hindered finance staff’s ability to prepare and audit financial statements from the previous fiscal year, the town explained. The town transitioned to a new accounting system in January 2025, the document states, requiring data conversions that later required corrections. The town also saw turnover in both its finance director in April 2025 and its assistant finance director in August.
But the town has been “fully restaffed in its accounting and reporting functions,” the document states, and has since dedicated money to support year-end financial reporting.
“The Town is confident that staffing stability and appropriate investments in report writing will improve the timeliness of future annual comprehensive financial reports both to the Town’s citizens and to the Commission,” the document states.
Regarding the P-card usage policy, the town again cited turnover in the finance department and changes to its financial control environment, including a system transition, that impacted its ability to administer P-card transactions.
“As a result, the Town’s Finance Department could not carry out certain written procedures required by policy,” the document states, including suspending P-card privileges for employees or officials who failed to submit timely receipts and monitoring transactions.
“The Town has since tightened restrictions and is more uniformly enforcing the policy and additionally, is preparing a revised policy document that better reflects the Towns’ commitment to internal control and current software,” the document states.
Regarding the utilities non-payment, the town, in the document, cites its moratorium on applying late fees and disconnections for unpaid balances.
“This policy was applied broadly to all customers,” the document states. “Without penalties in effect, enforced collections were not flagged or applied in the Town’s billing system, leading to the oversight [of the state law].”
The document notes that the finance director is working on developing a procedure to comply with the law.
“As of the date of this letter, there are no amounts of unpaid monies due to the town from its elected officials for town services,” the document notes.
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