Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn is the last member municipality to agree to provide more financial support to the Southeast Adult Education Center (VHS) from 2023 onwards. As before in Neubiberg, Hohenbrunn, Ottobrunn and Putzbrunn, the municipal council decided to amend the contract for municipal co-financing. Accordingly, both the basic amount per inhabitant and the so-called performance allowance, which is calculated on the basis of the participant hours of citizens from the respective location, will be increased. The municipality of Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn will therefore transfer 71,000 euros to the VHS in 2023, a good 9,000 euros more than before. In 2024 it is expected to be 78,000 euros.
Before the decision was made, managing director Christof Schulz explained the situation of his VHS to the municipal council. Accordingly, the facility “survived the second year of the pandemic very well”. The earnings, asset and financial situation of the VHS are all “very good”. However, it is now a question of securing this structure for the future, said Schulz. Investments are pending in several premises, including the Hohenbrunn sports campus and the Schlossanger in Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn. Above all, you have to reckon with rising personnel costs. To make matters worse, according to Schulz, the VHS still allows fewer participants for many offers than before the pandemic. The facility still adheres to distance rules. “I’m assuming that we won’t take that back until spring 2023,” said Schulz. “Only then will we be able to return to the level of productivity we had before Corona.”
According to Schulz, all these factors will lead to an annual shortfall of 140,000 euros. Of this, 100,000 euros are now to be covered by the higher payments from the municipalities; the VHS wants to carry the rest itself.