The mayor of Bamberg, Andreas Starke (SPD), has decided to accept a penalty order for breach of trust. This emerges from a statement from the city on Tuesday. Starke has to pay a fine of 24,000 euros, but avoids a public hearing in court. The Hof district court issued the penalty order at the end of July at the request of the local public prosecutor’s office because Starke is said to have approved flat-rate overtime payments for a city official and six employees between 2011 and 2017 without actually documenting overtime. The city had cost around 275,000 euros extra.
In this so-called bonus affair, three other city hall officials had received penal orders in addition to the mayor. For Starke it is the second in his tenure. A year ago, there was a breach of official secrets because his SPD had sent out special election advertising to citizens with a migration background and the data came from the municipal register. As then, Starke argues that a public trial would harm the city’s well-being. But that would be “most useful when the process is completed”.