A State Audit Found 62 Percent of One Town's Employees Held Government Purchasing Cards. The Town Manager Had Eliminated the Internal Auditor Position.

CARY, N.C. - The North Carolina State Auditor has released an investigative report finding widespread oversight failures and questionable spending in the Town of Cary, a Wake County municipality of roughly 180,000 people.

Two findings sit at the center of it.

The audit found that 62 percent of town employees held a town purchasing card, and that those cards accounted for $24.2 million in purchases over two years.

And an attorney presenting the findings said that when former town manager Sean Stegall arrived, the town had an internal auditor on staff, and that Stegall eliminated the position.

No charges have been filed. The investigative report does not identify criminal activity by Stegall or by any other member of town government. Criminal investigations by the Wake County District Attorney's Office and the State Bureau of Investigation remain open, and Stegall is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

How it came to light

The Town Council placed Stegall on paid administrative leave in November 2025, after a public records request surfaced a series of major expenditures that several council members, including the mayor, said they had not known about.

He resigned a month later. The town subsequently described his conduct as over-the-top spending and inadequate financial reporting.

State Auditor Dave Boliek's office opened its investigation in November, days after the council acted. Boliek has said his office continues to work closely with the district attorney and the State Bureau of Investigation. The report notes that his office referred certain matters to both agencies and declined to identify those transactions publicly to avoid compromising the investigations.

Residents at a public meeting after the audit's release made a point worth recording: if 62 percent of employees held cards, the former manager was not the only one spending. One resident said Stegall had set a terrible example but that this did not excuse those who followed it.

The finding underneath the finding

The dollar figure will draw the attention. The eliminated internal auditor position is the more instructive detail.

An internal auditor is the mechanism a local government uses to catch its own problems before a state auditor, a district attorney, or a newspaper does. It is also, in most municipal budgets, a small line item that produces no visible service and can be cut without any resident noticing.

What the Cary sequence shows is the interval between removing that function and discovering the consequences. The position was eliminated during Stegall's tenure. The spending accumulated. It surfaced through a public records request filed by someone outside the government, not through any internal control.

That interval is the reason this is a story about municipal governance generally and not only about one town in North Carolina.

There is a reasonable counterpoint. Purchasing cards are a legitimate and widely used tool that reduce paperwork and speed small transactions, and a high card-issuance rate is not by itself evidence of misuse. What matters is the control environment around them: approval thresholds, receipt requirements, periodic review, and someone independent whose job is to look. The audit's finding is about that environment, not about the existence of the cards.

Why It Matters

Roughly nineteen thousand incorporated municipalities operate in the United States. Most of them are small, most receive little sustained press coverage, and in most of them a decision to eliminate an internal audit function would pass without public comment.

The questions a resident of any of them can ask, without filing anything, are short. Does this government have an internal auditor. To whom does that person report. How many employees hold purchasing cards, and what is the approval threshold. When was the last independent review of card spending, and is it published.

Those questions have answers in most places. They are rarely asked until after the audit.

Accountability Watch

Who is accountable: The Town of Cary and its Town Council, which oversee the manager and approve the budget that funds internal controls. The North Carolina State Auditor, which produced the report. The Wake County District Attorney's Office and the State Bureau of Investigation, which have open investigations.

What is pending: The criminal investigations, and any decision by Cary to restore an internal audit function.

Timeline: Stegall placed on paid administrative leave November 2025. State Auditor investigation opened days later. Stegall resigned December 2025. Investigative report released July 2026.

Status as of August 3, 2026: Investigations open. No charges filed. No finding of criminal activity in the report.

How to verify: The North Carolina State Auditor publishes its investigative reports in full, including the methodology and the scope of records reviewed. Cary Town Council minutes for November and December 2025 record the personnel actions.