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Cary employees spent almost $1 million on food and drinks alone over 2024 and 2025, the North Carolina Office of the State Auditor reported last week.
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That included meals at fine-dining restaurants as well as fast-food chains and was a part of a broader pattern of “extravagant” spending that Auditor Dave Boliek’s office detailed in its report.
Town employees used their “p-cards” or procurement cards to make roughly $900,000 in food and drink purchases, or 3.5% of total p-card spending over the two years, the auditor’s office report states.
“Town procedure permits reimbursement only for food purchases that serve a legitimate business purpose and which have received the necessary approvals,” the report states.
As of November, more than 60% of Cary’s approximately 1,300 employees had the cards, which work like town debit cards.
The town has since reduced that number by 25%, it told the auditor’s office, and interim Town Manager Russ Overton said the town would work to reduce it further.
The auditor’s report zeroes in on the purchases of 18 town employees, who spent almost $80,000 on food in those two years.
That includes almost $7,400 at Panera Bread in 88 separate transactions, more than $6,000 at fine-dining establishment Rey’s Restaurant in Raleigh across three transactions and more than $5,000 at Port Land Grille in a single dinner in Wilmington for a Town Council annual retreat.
The report also details regular visits to chains like Burrito Shak, Domino’s and IHOP as well as more than $2,000 spent on food deliveries via Uber Eats.
Council member Sarika Bansal, the only Town Council member who responded to The News & Observer, said some of the food was purchased for meetings held by council members, which are open to the public and where anyone can eat the food.
Individual or smaller meal purchases under $30 accounted for about 20% of the number of purchases (131 of 617) and just over $2,000 (2.6%) of the total $80,000 that the 18 employees highlighted in the auditor’s report spent on food.
Some people may eat during working lunches, but Bansal said she is not at Cary’s town facilities all the time and can’t speak for things she doesn’t see.
But she acknowledged the culture of spending outlined in the auditor’s report.
“It’s just a culture,” she said. “We’re not talking about just one meal. That’s what we have uncovered.”
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She says she believes that everyone in the town is taking the issue seriously.
And she said that at least anecdotally, she’s seen fewer meals being ordered at lunch meetings now.
Town employees spent a total of more than $24 million across two years — 2024 and 2025 — with their p-cards.
Not all the money spent falls into the “extravagant” spending category Boliek described. Much of it was spent on things across the town’s budget like airline flights and hotel stays or purchases at Walmart and through Amazon.
However, the auditor’s report notes the town’s “high number of PCards increases the opportunity for fraud and wasteful spending.”
And Mayor Harold Weinbrecht has said, while employees were making questionable purchases, the town neglected growing needs like public safety staffing.
Former Town Manager Sean Stegall’s culture of holding back information and underinvestment led to worse police department response times, he said.
The town added funding for 21 new police officer positions in this year’s budget, the first addition to the force in a decade.
One year of p-card spending — $12 million — still cost the town more than the $10 million it added to the police budget this year.
The town has promised to overhaul its p-card procedures, but told the state auditor that won’t be ready for the Town Council to vote on until February 2027.
The council met in a work session Tuesday night to discuss some of the auditor’s report, and it will meet again at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in council chambers on North Academy Street.
The council is set to vote on a formal employee anti-retaliation policy that “provides clear, consistent protections for employees who report, in good faith, misconduct or policy violations by employees or elected officials.”
NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email [email protected].
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