Munich: Children and youth welfare facilities in need – Munich

The collective bargaining agreement in the public sector in the summer brings child and youth welfare facilities in Munich into financial difficulties. “Together with the increased energy costs and the high rate of inflation, the tariff increases in the social and educational services of the public sector are putting some institutions in existential distress,” says Claudia Holtkamp, ​​officer for children, youth and families at the Parity Welfare Association. Affected are facilities that are financed by the municipalities through so-called fees; for example the stationary youth welfare facilities. Claudia Holtkamp assumes that there are around 60 facilities in Munich.

Other institutions, including those in the fields of education and social affairs, which do not receive fees but grants from the city, will receive 20 million euros from the city in the coming year to compensate for the increased tariff and energy costs. The city council had decided in early December. But, for example, the HPKJ, which supports around 20 child and youth welfare facilities in Munich, has a financial gap of 100,000 euros, according to the managing director Angela Bauer.

The reason for this financial gap are the allowances that unions and municipal employers agreed on this year. The carriers have to pay the allowances retrospectively from July 1 of this year to educators and social workers, among others. However, the city will only take the allowances into account in its payments to the providers from December 1, 2022.

“This creates funding gaps for the providers,” says Claudia Holtkamp from the Parity Welfare Association. If they are bound by a collective agreement, they must pay the allowances. But even if they are not bound by the collective agreement, they actually have to pay because of the shortage of skilled workers, says Holtkamp. “Otherwise the educational staff will quickly change employers.” One thing is clear: the carriers will be left with the costs of the allowance from July to December.

A spokesman for the social department said the situation was not satisfactory for the state capital of Munich either. The city cannot change the fact itself at the moment. It would be necessary to adapt the regulations for the fee system. This federal law currently prohibits retrospective funding. The department for social affairs does not know how large the funding gaps are among the providers. Since the actual costs of the facilities are not clear, nothing more can be said about the extent of the funding gaps, a spokesman said.

According to the social department, the city of Munich has already chosen a special way to financially support the independent child and youth welfare organizations: It will finance the allowances from December 1st and will not wait until renegotiations with the individual providers queue. As a rule, the fees that inpatient child and youth welfare facilities receive from the municipalities are negotiated for one year. This leaves five months in which the carriers have to pay allowances to their employees, but they are not reimbursed.

“The fact is, the city would find a way to finance it,” says Angela Bauer. It cannot be a solution to simply not pay the allowance. “We don’t make a profit. It’s about paying the employees and, at the end of the day, good quality for children and young people.”

Sudden financial problems: Angela Bauer is the executive director of the youth welfare agency HPKJ.

(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)

For example, the HPKJ has 200 employees, 110 of whom are legally entitled to the allowance. They work in more than 20 institutions in Munich, for example in a house for single mothers with children who are unable to lead an independent life, in crisis support for families or as carers in a therapeutic residential group.

Larissa Kleisl has been working in such a residential group for ten years, taking care of nine young people alternately in day and night shifts. The young people between 14 and 18 live here because they have depression, because they have experienced violence in the family or neglect. Here they should learn to live independently.

Consequences of the collective bargaining agreement: Always approachable: The employee of a therapeutic residential group in conversation with a young person.

Always approachable: The employee of a therapeutic residential group in conversation with a young person.

(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)

Thanks to the collective bargaining agreement, Larissa Kleisl will receive an allowance of EUR 180 gross every month from July 1 of this year. “That’s a welcome bonus,” says the teacher. The other perspective is that of their employer. Angela Bauer, as the executive director of the HPKJ, is happy that her employees earn more – but the implementation is difficult.

The city is also responsible for fee-financed child and youth welfare facilities, such as the Munich orphanage. There, too, no retrospective financing can take place, there is also a gap in refinancing of five months, said a spokesman for the social department. “The City of Munich, as the provider of facilities, must try, like all other affected independent providers of child and youth welfare, to save the costs of the refinancing gap elsewhere or to settle them from other funds.”

Angela Bauer will now check which investments can be postponed. The walls in the therapeutic residential group are still being repainted, but maybe savings have to be made on holiday trips or at the summer festivals of the various facilities, a little everywhere. And now she wants to raise money for donations.

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