Cary spent $85K to send town officials to courses at Harvard, other schools
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Cary spent at least $84,909.90 on executive courses since 2016.
- Tuition totaling $51,700 was paid for three officials to attend Harvard.
- Town records show travel, lodging and per diem costs were billed in addition to tuition.
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Cary under scrutiny
The town of Cary has been in the spotlight since late November, when Town Manager Sean Stegall was put on administrative leave without any explanation from the town. Stegall resigned Dec. 13, 2025, amid reports of questionable spending. Here is ongoing coverage from The News & Observer.
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Professional development for Cary employees once meant taking classes at the UNC School of Government or attending conferences and workshops through municipal leader associations.
But after Sean Stegall was hired as town manager in 2016, education benefits looked different. “No one went to Harvard” before he was hired, Chief Strategy Officer Susan Moran told The News & Observer.
Stegall “decided who would go to Harvard, when they would go, and that the town would pay for Harvard,” Moran said.
The town also paid for courses at Vanderbilt University and the University of Virginia. The former town manager “directed that those experiences be paid for with town funds, whether it was for council or for staff,” Moran said.
At least $84,909.90 has been spent to send a handful of the town’s senior staffers through programs at the schools since 2016, a review of town records by The News & Observer found.
That includes tuition for executive leadership courses at the universities. Other documents show more expenses for travel, lodging and meals to attend the sometimes weeks-long programs.
Neither Stegall nor his attorney responded to The N&O’s request for comment.
Cary goes Crimson
“Everything changed,” after Stegall finished a Harvard certificate program in 2008.
“I saw the light,” the former Cary town manager, who was forced to resign late last year and is now under investigation for questionable spending, wrote in his book published last year.
It is where Stegall “learned to be the manager that he was when the council hired him to be that next manager,” Moran said.
After his hiring, other officials ended up going through a similar Harvard course, according to records released to The N&O.
Tuition alone for the three officials to enroll in the Senior Executives in State and Local Government certificate course at Harvard cost $51,700.
Interim Town Manager Russ Overton, Assistant Town Manager Danna Widmar and Chief Human Resources Officer Renee Poole all finished the course between 2022 and 2024, the Harvard Kennedy School confirmed to The N&O.
In addition to Poole’s $17,400 tuition, $975.35 was spent on airfare and transportation to Massachusetts, records show. The grand total for her time at Harvard was $19,125.35, which included $750 in per diem expenses for the three-week course.
The program’s tuition covered lodging and food expenses, the Harvard Kennedy School confirmed.
Poole didn’t respond to The N&O’s questions about whether she was approached by Stegall to take the course, as Moran’s narrative suggests. Or whether she had any concerns about using town money to pay for the expenses.
In an email to The N&O, Widmar said the former town manager identified programs for her to take.
Overton’s tuition cost $16,900. Another invoice shows an additional $435.61 spent on a single night at the Double Tree Hotel in Boston.
In a statement to The N&O, Overton said Stegall made him aware of the “training opportunities,” but did not answer whether using town money to pay for the education raised any red flags to him.
Stegall and his lawyer didn’t respond to a request for comment about Moran’s claims about his affinity for Harvard or if he prompted others in the town to apply for the program.
Vanderbilt and beyond
In addition to Harvard, town records show Stegall and Widmar registered for various courses and events at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
Almost $2,300 was paid to the university’s Office of Conferences from the town on Stegall’s behalf in 2019, expense reports show. An additional $887.81 was spent on a room at Hyatt’s Holston House in Nashville in February that same year.
It cost $5,705 a few months later to enroll Stegall in a “Leadership Excellence” course taught through Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management, records show.
Widmar was enrolled in an event through Vanderbilt’s Office of Conferences in 2018, which cost the town close to $2,300.
Another $10,950 was paid to American University by another town employee on Stegall’s behalf, town records show.
Stegall says he holds a leadership coaching certificate from the institution, according to an author page on Simon & Schuster’s website, the company that published Stegall’s book.
Other money was spent to send town officials to the Senior Executive Institute hosted by the University of Virginia. That includes $9,558.73 for registration fees and travel expenses.
‘The manager makes the rules’
Moran said there is a distinction between “professional development” and education expenses. As to whether that language had any significance to how money is disbursed under certain policies, Moran turned it back on Stegall.
“The manager makes the rules,” Moran said during an interview with The N&O. “The manager gets to direct the expenditures, within whatever parameters there are in the adopted budget of the town.”
Cary employees can be reimbursed for tuition, registration, laboratory and student fees, according to the town’s code. There isn’t a cap on the amount of money that can be reimbursed for those expenses.
Another stipulation of the code: “Satisfactory completion of the course will be required for reimbursement.” Records show the town paid for at least some of the expenses before staffers started their course.
After the one-hour interview Moran agreed to, an N&O reporter reached back out for clarification about whether using town money to register officials for courses before they’ve completed the programs goes against town code. Moran declined to provide additional answers.
“We don’t have anything more on this story for you,” Moran said in an email to The N&O. “Hopefully, our time together ends up being sufficient for your needs.”
Cary officials have used town money to pay for council member Lori Bush used $37,397 to fund a Northwestern master’s degree, The N&O reported. Bush later repaid that money.
