Travel crackdown comes at a time of budget pressures and a week after revelations about an Invest Vancouver trip to attend a conference in Lisbon
Metro Vancouver has called a halt to all out-of-province travel by regional district staff for professional development while it’s under pressure to tighten its budget and amid revelations of apparently lavish trips by some staff.
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Jerry Dobrovolny, regional district chief administrative officer, delivered the edict to hit pause on professional development travel Wednesday in an email to all staff as a measure to “ensure the effective use of all funds, and any potential savings.”
The email also comes a week after revelations of an early November trip to an internet conference in Lisbon by staff from Metro’s Invest Vancouver economic development agency were reported by Global News, the latest in travel by Metro members that critics have characterized as excessive.
Metro spokeswoman Amanda McCuaig said the regional district “pulled back significantly” on staff travel starting in July when Metro board chairman Mike Hurley, mayor of Burnaby, called for a halt to international travel by elected officials.
That was after Hurley and three other Metro mayors travelled to an international wastewater conference in Amsterdam, despite revelations that Metro’s new North Shore sewage treatment plant had become an almost $4 billion boondoggle.
“It’s part of that being mindful about what are the decisions that we’re making about things that could be considered discretionary spending,” McCuaig said. “We have to make sure people have their (professional) accreditation, (but we need) to be mindful about the way we support that professional development.”
In his email, Dobrovolny said that for this year, staff travel was restricted to travel that was already booked for conferences as part of professional development, where staff were invited as presenters or where staff were participating in activities that improve “proficiency in addressing critical emergency operations events.”
“As we approach the new year, I am continuing to review professional development requests and opportunities, and will continue to only permit travel under careful scrutiny and for critical or essential purposes,” Dobrovolny wrote.
For that reason, he said Metro would hit pause on any travel outside B.C. for professional development and travel “for any other purpose will require significant rationale and my personal sign-off and approval.”
McCuaig didn’t immediately have a figure for how much of a cost savings hitting pause would provide, but in the past Metro might send one to 12 representatives to key infrastructure-related conferences.
She added that notwithstanding the pause, Metro has a policy that restricts how often individual staff members travel for conferences to balance out the professional development opportunities allocated to individuals.
However, the Water Environment Federation’s annual technical exhibition and conference, held this year in New Orleans, is one conference Metro often sends speakers to, McCuaig said. An organization called the International Association of Public Participation is another.
In his email, Dobrovolny said Metro is “deeply cognizant” of its financial challenges, “particularly as our organization is undertaking its largest capital plan in Metro Vancouver’s history.”
“At the same time, it is extraordinarily challenging to meet and deliver on these several, large-scale project requirements while simultaneously trying to minimize the financial impact on our region,” Dobrovolny said.
The Metro board, at its October meeting, approved a 2025 budget that included an almost 10-per-cent tax increase, despite objections from the board’s North Shore representatives.
City of North Vancouver Mayor Linda Buchanan said the increase “could push many families to their breaking point.”
In that light, McCuaig said Metro staff is examining every line of its 2026 budget. Its financial plan anticipates a five per cent increase for 2026, but “we have a very aggressive goal of keeping that increase as low as possible.”
“We really want to get that to something that might even be lower than that,” she added.