Mayors, district administrators, city councilors: There are more glamorous jobs with higher pay and more fame. On the other hand, not everything is bad if you get involved in your home community. Anyone who makes it onto the board of directors of a savings bank, for example, collects between 4,000 and 15,000 euros in expense allowance per year, plus attendance fees. You can also take part in interesting excursions. These are all manageable but attractive amenities. In this context, the savings bank days at state and federal level are legendary, including a supporting program for spouses.
At times this supporting program is surprisingly lavish, as Kai Boeddinghaus reports. For the left, the non-party, 64-year-old city councilor from Kassel sits on the board of directors of the Kasseler Sparkasse. Boeddinghaus, whose main job is managing director of a business association, is someone who likes to question things. With the Federal Association of Independent Chambers, he has been fighting for years against compulsory membership in the Chambers of Industry and Commerce and railed against excessive salaries for IHK managing directors. In the scene he is considered a “chamber rebel”.
Kai Boeddinghaus is considered a “chamber rebel”. For the left, the non-party, 64-year-old city councilor from Kassel sits on the board of directors of the Kasseler Sparkasse.
(Photo: Kai Frommann)
As a savings bank board member, he took part in a two-day training course for board members in the Taunus town of Bad Nauheim in autumn 2023, at the invitation of the Hesse-Thuringia savings bank association. In principle, he has nothing to complain about in the seminar, says Boeddinghaus. The fact that the event, including hotel accommodation, stretched over two days was also fine; personal exchange made sense.
What really bothered Boeddinghaus was going to the bar in the evening. Until after midnight, the almost 100 seminar participants helped themselves to wine, champagne, beer, long drinks and harder stuff at the hotel bar. “Some had to be supported when leaving the bar, and quite a few of the participants were seriously injured,” remembers Boeddinghaus. When he wanted to pay for his – non-alcoholic – drinks, he was told: No need, the savings bank association would already pay. In total, the party cost 2,700 euros, as Boeddinghaus found out and the savings bank association confirmed when asked.
According to the association, there can be no question of “group drinking”.
Boeddinghaus criticizes this as completely inappropriate. It’s not about millions, but about the principle: “group drinking” doesn’t fit with the down-to-earth image of the savings banks. “We board members control the boards of directors. It cannot be the case that we allow ourselves to be excessively invited by the savings banks,” he says. Especially: Savings banks also only manage their customers’ money in trust; it does not belong to them. And when it comes to passing on higher key interest rates to savers, the cash registers tend to be in the stingy rearguard. Official drunkenness doesn’t fit into the picture.
Boeddinghaus has asked the board of directors of Kasseler Sparkasse to severely limit such escapades. We hear that this should probably stop in the future. The Kasseler Sparkasse itself does not want to comment. The Sparkasse Association, the organizer of the seminar and party, says that the dinner together and the subsequent visit to the bar were part of the event program. But you don’t keep tallies of who takes part, until when, and who drinks what. It is not known that colleagues had to be “supported” and there can be no question of “group drinking”.
According to Boeddinghaus, bar outings at savings bank seminars are not an exception, but rather common. He continues to fight for a moderate use of public assets, precisely because the savings banks are very important to him, he says. After all, after completing the seminar in Bad Nauheim, he successfully insisted on paying for his own drinks for a total of 15 euros.