Verizon bought booze for state employees while negotiating contract, records suggest

Meal tabs on occasion exceeded $80 per person

RALEIGH (By David N. Bass, Carolina Journal Online) — Expenses documented by Verizon Business and released by the state suggest the telecommunications company bought alcohol for state employees on at least a dozen occasions, even while negotiating a $51.5 million contract to support the state’s vehicle inspections program.

State officials and Verizon representatives won’t confirm whether spirits were part of more than 200 meals the company says it bought for employees and their significant others at the Department of Transportation and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources over the past four years. But per-person expenditures at the bars and restaurants suggest that such beverages were on the tab multiple times.