A $500 dinner, high-end sound equipment: A peek into ex-Cary town manager’s spending

A high-end speaker system delivered to a home, not a town office. A pricey out-of-town dinner classified as a training expense.

These are just some of the items former Cary Town Manager Sean Stegall paid for using his town-issued procurement card, according to records obtained from the town.

The transactions detailed in expense reports submitted on Stegall’s behalf are among at least $12,500 worth of purchases made from 2024 to 2025 and reviewed by The News & Observer.

While some expenses, like for travel, were tagged accordingly in a database shared by the town, others list what look like mismatched labels. A dinner costing nearly $500 at an Alpharetta, Gerogria steakhouse with Cary Mayor Harold Weinbrecht and others expensed by Stegall showed up as a “training” expense.

And when Stegall did expense items with town money, he didn’t always promptly produce receipts or documentation for his spending on time, emails between town staffers reviewed by The N&O show.

Scrutiny of how Stegall spent town money has swelled since the nearly 10-year town manager was pushed out of his job in December.

Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman and Cary’s police chief have asked the State Bureau of Investigation to open a criminal probe into town spending — including transactions made by Stegall.

That occurred after the State Auditor’s Office shared information on “potential criminal activity.”

Details on what either are looking into are slim. But State Auditor Dave Boliek has said an analysis of procurement card data found that “several transactions that are potentially indicative of fraud.” Using public funds to have items delivered to a personal residence “would flag something as potential fraud,” Boliek said in an interview with ABC11.

“It would beg the question ‘why is an individual who has purchasing authority having something that is purchased on behalf of a public entity delivered to their personal residence?’,” Boliek added.

More on the charges

Stegall has not responded to The N&O’s request for comment on spending detailed or alluded to in the Cary records. Nor have Weinbrecht, Mayor Pro Tem Lori Bush, DA Freeman or the State Auditor’s Office.

The documents obtained by The N&O provide snapshots of Stegall’s purchases.

The expense reports from August 2024 through September 2025 includes over $1,380 spent on “approved business meals,” $3,440.58 for a new MacBook Pro purchased on Dec. 23, 2024, and over $8,500 on transactions described as “supplies.”

Receipts from 2024 and 2025 also obtained by the N&O describe more transactions made on Stegall’s town-issued card that are not always listed on those reports.

They record a $1,074 order placed on Feb. 12, 2024, for two Sonos Era 300 speakers and a wall mount, with all to be delivered to Cary Town Hall.

Just days before, Stegall bought another Sonos speaker for $882.68, which was to be delivered to his home, according to receipts released by the town. The next month, Stegall expensed $449.66 for a streaming device for the Sonos system, also sent to his home.

A trip from Raleigh to Kansas City from Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, 2024, originally cost the town $509.20. Records show Stegall upgraded economy class tickets for an additional $367.25.

Stegall stayed at The Hotel at Avalon in Alpharetta, Georgia, for the American Public Works Association conference in Sept. 2024. His two-night stay at the four-star hotel cost $887.84.

Discrepancies in expense reports

Purchases visible in town expense reports that don’t always correspond to how they are described include:

Stegall spent $490 in September 2024 at Oak Steakhouse in Alpharetta, Georgia on a dinner with Mayor Weinbrecht and APWA conference speakers, according to the entry on his expense report. The receipt attached to the expense report shows two people on the bill, a $390.06 total and a $100 tip.

And he submitted a receipt for an almost $60 lunch at the same conference with Weinbrecht.

Both meal charges were described in expense reports as “training” expenses.

A $245 subscription to The Week, a curated news magazine, was paid for with Stegall’s procurement card and was logged as a “dues & memberships” expense. And Mayor Pro Tem Bush’s Harvard Business Review subscription, a $209.14 purchase listed in expense reports, was logged as a supply expense.

Waiting on receipts

The former town manager was sometimes late submitting receipts for his purchases, emails reviewed by The N&O that date back to 2018 show.

When that happened, staffers from the town manager’s office and the finance department sometimes corresponded asking Stegall for documentation of his expenses.

Records show multiple instances of staff members emailing Stegall to ask for outstanding receipts, sometimes months after purchases were made.

One staffer asked for 29 outstanding receipts in 2019, including $92.55 spent at Hooters of Frisco, with other charges around the same date indicating Stegall was in Texas.

A 2021 request for documentation of Stegall’s spending includes four charges totalling $143.96 at The Links at Stono Ferry, a golf course built on the grounds of a Revolutionary War battle site in Charleston, South Carolina.

Yet another request sent to Stegall in 2023 included over 40 outstanding receipts that totaled close to $8,400. The list had $433.29 spent on a sound system and over $2,500 worth of Amazon transactions.

Sometimes it’s hard to decipher what town money ultimately paid for. Some emails point to instances where Stegall agreed to write a check to cover at least some of the transactions he made with his town card.

That includes 2021 expenses for a $33.27 Domino’s order and $88.76 spent at Pinehurst Brewing.

What are the rules for such spending?

Procurement cards, or “P-Cards,” are used by town employees to make “low cost supply and service” purchases, according to a Cary town policy obtained by The N&O.

And there are rules, according to policy documents released by the town.

Among them: The cards can only be used for official town business, receipts must be uploaded to an expense website and they can’t be used to purchase meals related to town approved travel.

Anything other than purchases made for official business “is a fraudulent use,” according to the policy.

The town’s policies also say that food should not be purchased with town money for staff meetings, meals during “routinely scheduled evening work,” “personal” celebrations, meals during travel trips that do not require an overnight stay and other special events.

Town officials did not respond to The N&O’s request for clarification on the dates these policies were in place.

This story was originally published January 20, 2026 at 5:30 AM.

Nathan Collins

The News & Observer

Nathan Collins is an investigative reporter at The News & Observer. He started his career in public radio where he earned statewide recognition for his accountability reporting in Dallas, Texas. Collins is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a former professional musician.