Cary leaders on Saturday ended their two-day retreat as they look to chart the town’s future.
The second day of meetings focused on the town’s finances, which Cary’s finance director said has a positive outlook.
“Property tax and sales tax revenues are outperforming the budget, you all have heard that, for this fiscal year,” said Cary Finance Director Kimberly Branch.
The projections come as state investigators look into former town manager Sean Stegall’s spending. Questions about the town’s over-the-top spending of money and inadequate financial reports led to Stegall’s resignation.
Earlier this month, an independent audit revealed what it calls internal weaknesses linked to Stegall’s overspending and lack of transparency.
“The results of our procedures did indicate that former town manager did not always model or reinforce the ethical behavior that is laid out in your policy,” said Audit Director Lee Ann Watters during a town council meeting on February 5.
There was no mention of Stegall during Saturday’s finance update. Fiscal responsibility was a key point in council members’ rankings of budget priorities.
“Because of where we are and where we’ve been with taxes and revenue and all that, I ranked fiscal responsibility the highest,” said Mayor Pro Tem Lori Bush.
The financial outlook is a rebound from deficits at this point in fiscal years 2023 and 2024, according to Town of Cary data.
Town staff says spending has increased by more than $60 million in the last four years, with police seeing the biggest jump.
“We opened our downtown park. As a result of opening our downtown park, we picked up new public safety positions,” Branch said.
She noted that the independent audit was submitted last week to the Local Government Commission.