The office of Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, pictured in March, 2023, won't say how much city manager Paul Mochrie will receive in severance.Kayla Isomura/the Globe and Mail
Vancouver paid just over $2-million in severance to 34 non-union employees since the new ABC party was elected in late 2022, putting it at the top of the list for severance payouts among British Columbia’s biggest cities since the last civic election.
But that figure, well above the average in Vancouver, is not routinely made available in the city’s financial statements. City watchers have decried the lack of transparency and say the turbulence is one consequence of new mayors and councils wanting to make a public show of big change.
In July, Vancouver announced well-regarded city manager Paul Mochrie would be departing. A news release said “a change of leadership” was necessary. Mr. Mochrie had been with the city for 14 years. It’s expected his severance will add a significant amount to the severance costs the city has paid out since ABC was elected.
Previous city managers Judy Rogers and Penny Ballem got more than $500,000 apiece when they parted ways with the city. Severance is typically awarded when employees are terminated without cause.
In the 10 years prior to ABC’s win, the city averaged 10 severance payouts a year, ranging from one in 2020 to 17 in 2016.
The mayor’s office in Vancouver will not say how much Mr. Mochrie will get for severance. The Globe and Mail was given the aggregate $2-million severance total after a request, but it is not something that is posted in public documents on the city’s website that provide information about employees’ and council members’ pay as part of a requirement to be transparent about how taxpayer money is spent.
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Similarly, the public records of other municipalities in B.C. also do not list how much they’ve paid out in dollars for non-union staff whose employment was ended.
That’s in contrast to Toronto, which reports annually to council the number of severance payments and the dollar amount. The last report, in November, 2024, indicated Toronto had paid a high of $4.9-million for severance in 2019, with other years ranging from just under $1-million to $3.2-million.
Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the issue. The city announced last week it had hired a new city manager, Donny van Dyk, who has been the city manager in Delta the past two years.
Among B.C.’s largest cities, severance payouts are a relatively small item. Burnaby had nine in the past two years; Abbotsford, seven; Richmond, six; Kelowna, five; Coquitlam, four; Victoria, three.
But four local governments in the Lower Mainland stand out for the high number of agreements or dollar payouts in the past two years, since mayors and councils were elected. The highest appear to be in cities where a new political party or new mayor with a mandate for change was elected.
Besides Vancouver, they include Metro Vancouver, which had 26 severance payouts that cost about $1.3-million total, and Surrey, with 16 severance agreements in the past two years that paid out almost $2.5-million.
As well, the Township of Langley, where Mayor Eric Woodward has been in charge since 2022, had an unprecedented 18 severance agreements in 2024 and four in 2023, an unusually high number for a small city. (In the previous three years, under then mayor Jack Froese, there were four severance payments total.)
Township staff did not respond to a Globe request for the total amount paid out, although a local blogger has estimated the amount at $1.8-million, which he attributed to the high number of senior staff who left, by looking at annual staff payment records.
Mr. Woodward agreed the number was high but said it had nothing to do with a new mayor and council coming in.
“While the 18 may seem high, my general understanding is that it includes a number of retirements in the normal course of operations, including union and other mid-level employees that council has little to no formal or day-to-day interaction with,” he wrote in an e-mail.
However, ministry staff and communications staff in other cities said the severance numbers, which are legally required to be reported by cities in their official Statements of Financial Information, do not include severance paid to union members or standard retirements.
With all cities, the public has no easy way to figure out how much it has cost a city to let go of its non-union employees. (Unionized employees have their payouts negotiated through their contract agreements). The only method is to try to find out the names of everyone leaving and compare their previous salaries to their payout year – a process that is hit and miss. That means payouts could be in the tens of thousands of dollars or in the millions.
Vancouver Councillor Pete Fry said that’s not good enough.
“I support fair severance packages for outgoing exempt staff, especially when they reflect the person’s contributions and time served. But this has to be balanced with accountability to taxpayers and respect for both the employee and the workplace,” he said.
“Without transparency, there’s a risk that severance could be seen as a political tool – like paying off critics.“
Former Vancouver head city planner Brent Toderian said the high number of departures in the city seems to indicate some deeper issues there.
“It’s a sign of a problem. Healthy places do not have that kind of turnover,” said Mr. Toderian, who was the first of a series of head planners who were hired and then terminated over the past 20 years in Vancouver.
“They’re now on the fourth chief planner since I left and the fourth city manager.”
That’s a problematic way to run an organization.
“If every time you have an election and there’s a new city manager and a severance – that’s a very expensive, chaotic way to do things. People underestimate how much damage stuff like this does.”