Editor’s note: This story was updated from an earlier version.
The Cary Town Council approved a proposal to spend $150,000 on an internal investigation into the former town manager, Sean Stegall, and another $100,000 on an “employee engagement initiative” at its regular meeting this week. Both items are part of a bigger effort to repair community trust following Stegall’s December resignation over alleged misuse of town funds and abuses of power.
Since Cary announced Stegall’s departure in mid-December, residents have been clamoring for more transparency from town leaders about his spending, his workplace conduct, and the town council’s oversight of his work and behavior. The council, for its part, has been discussing potential reforms and how to check the town manager’s authority going forward.
Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht announced plans for the internal investigation last month. Immediately following Stegall’s resignation, Weinbrecht said the town had hired Womble Bond Dickinson, a law firm that specializes in employment investigations, to “join us in looking deeply into [Stegall’s] activities … to ensure that we are fully aware of any problems, and that we put process changes in place so that something like this will never happen again in Cary.”
According to information included with the town council meeting agenda, the law firm has already begun its review, which will cover three areas: “(1) procurement card usage, reimbursement of Town funds, and expenditures of Town funds to Stegall and his support staff, other senior staff, and the Council; (2) Stegall’s reporting of Town finances to the Council; and (3) the work environment created by Stegall with Town staff and the Council.”
In addition to the internal investigation commissioned by the town of Cary, the State Auditor’s Office and the State Bureau of Investigation are each investigating Stegall’s spending. In public statements, Weinbrecht has welcomed the dual investigations and promised the town will cooperate fully.
According to the agenda for Thursday’s council meeting, the employee engagement initiative includes a survey of town of Cary staff (approximately 1,300 people). The initiative allocates $40,000 to the facilitation of in-person focus groups; $32,500 to design, distribution, analysis, and reporting of the employee engagement survey; and $22,500 to communications to drive participation.
Earlier this month, Weinbrecht told the INDY that he had asked Stegall to commission a staff satisfaction survey multiple times prior to his resignation, but it never happened. Weinbrecht said he wished he had pushed harder for the survey, since he later learned that Stegall “was unpredictable” in the workplace, “doing things, saying things to certain staff members that were inappropriate, and they felt like he was not being the leader he once was.” The agenda packet noted that Cary had previously conducted employee surveys in 1999, 2001, 2006, 2012, and 2015. Stegall started with the town in 2016.
The meeting agenda noted that the $250,000 total in proposed spending on these initiatives will come from Cary’s General Fund as a midyear appropriation. (Cary’s total budget for fiscal year 2026 is about $511 million, with $1 million set aside for midyear appropriations “to nimbly and adaptively respond to economic and other changing factors during the fiscal year.”)
The internal investigation and employee engagement initiative aren’t the first changes prompted by Stegall’s departure, and they’re unlikely to be the last.
Weinbrecht previously told the INDY that interim Town Manager Russ Overton will not hold one-on-one meetings with council members as Stegall did but will include more people and better documentation. Weinbrecht also said he wants to make the annual budget process more transparent to the public.
At a January 8 town council work session, Councilmembers Sarika Bansal and Lori Bush asked staff for more information and updated recommendations related to the town manager’s spending authority, the town’s fund balance, the external audit process, senior staff travel expenditures, and the land acquisition process—noting they knew staff were already looking into some of those topics.
“These discussions will help strengthen trust and ensure we are fulfilling our responsibilities to the residents we serve,” Bansal said during the work session.
Town staff are preparing a report based on Bansal and Bush’s requests, which they will present at a future council meeting.
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