The public prosecutor’s office in Hof has applied for a penalty order for breach of trust against Bamberg’s mayor, Andreas Starke (SPD). The public prosecutor’s office, which specializes in white-collar crime, also imposed fines of between 9,000 and 24,000 euros on three other employees. According to the prosecution, those responsible are said to have granted flat-rate remuneration to one civil servant and six employees without the prerequisites for this being met. As a result, the city of Bamberg suffered damage of around 275,000 euros. The so-called Bamberg Boni affair has thus reached a preliminary high point.
With regard to other cases in which lump-sum compensation for overtime or overtime was investigated, no criminally relevant behavior had been found, the public prosecutor said. Some cases were already statute-barred. Incidentally, no damage to the city could be proven in this regard. In addition, the investigations had shown that the majority of municipal employees had provided “extra-mandatory services”. In other words, hours were worked “beyond regular working hours” which the city in any case remunerated in a criminally unobjectionable way by means of lump sums.
The penal orders requested by the public prosecutor’s office have already been issued by the district court in Hof. The accused can appeal against this. In that case, there would be a public hearing at the district court in Hof. There was initially no reaction from the city of Bamberg and the Lord Mayor Starke.
The allegations about the Bamberg town hall in the “Boni affair” are complex. Here is an incomplete chronicle of the case:
In December 2020 power a report by the Bavarian Municipal Audit Association the round in Bamberg. City councilors are irritated. But many also warn against prejudice, and there is even talk of “secret betrayal”. The report comprises more than 150 pages, and the point dealing with “personnel law matters” is particularly explosive. Above all, the examiners chalk up overtime lump sums.
They should be inadmissible if the working hours were not recorded at all. Based on verified cases, it is not proven that overtime was actually incurred. The city also granted a number of employees and a civil servant flat rates, although work performance in addition to the agreed working hours was not proven. If payments have been made with knowledge of illegality, the question of liability arises.
Prosecutors are examining the suspicion of infidelity
The city protests against this. Of course, without exception, there was a connection between above-average additional work and reasonable remuneration. Additional work performed by the employees on a permanent basis – regular work at weekends, for example – was remunerated separately. Nevertheless, the Hof prosecutors are also interested in the report. They examine the suspicion of infidelity.
They could pay particular attention to page 39 of the – secret – report. There, the examiners state that in the cases examined alone, payments of more than 450,000 euros are said to have been made between 2012 and 2017 – and this allegedly “contrary to the collective agreement” or without a legal basis. As the prosecutor starts investigations shortly before New Year’s Day 2021this is more than uncomfortable for the city leaders – if only because it is not the first procedure at the time.
The Coburg public prosecutor’s office is also investigating against OB Starke. Before the local elections, the SPD had sent letters to citizens with a migration background. For this purpose, data from the population register including nationality had been passed on. Starke initially resists the idea that this should be punishable. in the July 2021 he accepts the penalty order because of violation of official secrets. A public trial would harm the city, he says.
An OB with an accepted penalty order? The city debate about town hall bonuses also fuels this. The one find that good money for regular extra work in town halls is the most normal thing in the world should be – and is anything but defamatory. The others fear that a town hall team will form a group of wagons and be welded together with generosity from the town treasury.
The city admits mistakes
The critics get the upper hand, especially since in May 2021, dozens of investigators combed City Hall to have. Investigations, even on this scale, are not prejudiced, counter some, especially from Bamberg’s social democracy. But hardly anyone denies that the pressure is increasing.
In June 2021 there will be another blow to the town hall office. The government of Upper Franconia, as a legal supervisor, declares that the city of Bamberg has violate the provisions of the collective agreement or the Bavarian Working Time Ordinance. She granted overtime flat rates, although time was not recorded or only partially recorded. There are no prerequisites for such payments – namely “lack of proof”. The same applies to paid overtime.
And that’s not the only thing the government is complaining about: If a city grants overtime lump sums over a longer period of time, this would be tantamount to a permanent order for overtime. So a violation of the collective agreement. The city then admits “mistakes” that should not be repeated. But consequences have already been drawn, flat rates have been set, time recording has been introduced and bonuses have been suspended.
Nevertheless, a lot of criticism rains down on the city. Bamberg’s SPD, in particular, occasionally sees itself treated unfairly, especially on social media. Confronted with the suspicion that it might be people close to social democracy operate fake accountsIn order to steer public opinion in a certain direction, a top SPD functionary justifies such accounts in BR as basically “okay”.
He then apologizes for it. nevertheless A party order, vulgo party exclusion procedure is running against himone of the many extensions of the “Boni Affair”.