Munich: youth welfare office spends too much money – Munich

The city youth welfare office spends too much money unnecessarily. This is how the result of a random audit in the economic youth welfare can be summarized. The Bavarian Municipal Auditing Association criticizes that, above all, priority claims on other payers were not recognized and asserted. Social officer Dorothee Schiwy sees the high workload as the main cause, when many unaccompanied minor refugees arrived, and the difficult personnel situation in the economic youth welfare service.

Of the 90.5 full-time jobs in economic youth welfare in the social community centres, only 62.5 were occupied in May 2021, i.e. a little more than two thirds. This alone made it difficult to cope with day-to-day business. In addition, the cost reimbursements for the unaccompanied minor refugees from 2015 had to be claimed, which, according to Schiwy, led to an “enormous burden”.

It was possible to secure reimbursements of around 240 million euros for the city from the district of Upper Bavaria and the government of Upper Bavaria before the statute of limitations would have expired. However, the processing of current cases has apparently suffered as a result. According to Schiwy, “long-term standard adjustments in case processing have become necessary”, the consequences of which are reflected in the test report.

The question often arises as to whether someone else would have to pay for the costs

The auditing association examined 46 cases of help from the years 2012 to 2017, which came from the largest cost block of the youth welfare office, help with education (2020: 252 million euros), help for young adults (51 million euros) and integration help (38 million euros). were selected. The results resulted in extensive follow-up work in order to check comparable cases of assistance in which claims were not yet time-barred.

The question very often arose as to whether another payer than the youth welfare office was responsible. According to the test report, the costs of attending a private school should only be covered by youth welfare if no public school can meet the child’s need for help. For this purpose, the public school advisory service should first be involved before the costs are assumed.

If children and young people are accommodated outside of the family, for example in a home, the necessity of this type of accommodation should be checked regularly in the support plan, especially in the case of particularly cost-intensive forms of support, such as in therapeutic groups, the auditing association complained. It should also be checked regularly whether the parents have to pay a contribution to the costs of inpatient accommodation due to their income.

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