When Wall Street bond dealmakers congregated in Las Vegas lastweek for their annual get-together, one group of folks wasconspicuously absent: SEC enforcement officials.

For years now, they've been crashing the marquee event, trying,somewhat awkwardly, to mingle and make industry contacts whilesniffing around for their next big case. But those plans werescuttled this year when word came down from SEC headquartersrecently that there was no room in the budget for investigators toattend.

The measure is part of a series of cuts that the enforcementdepartment — the division responsible for policing federalsecurities laws — is implementing as it braces for deep spendingreductions in President Donald Trump's budget proposal, accordingto two people with knowledge of the matter. In addition to the banon nonessential travel, the department has also imposed a hiringfreeze and curbed the use of outside contractors who assist SEClawyers with cases.