Shortly before the Unterföhringen municipal council will decide on the future of the financially troubled music school on Thursday evening, the board of the sponsoring association spoke publicly at a press conference on Tuesday for the first time in six months. First chairman Johannes Mecke and his deputy Miriam Merz-Hildenbrand announced their resignation from the board positions – and thus clear the way to join the Association of Bavarian Singing and Music Schools.
The local council had already requested this after the enormous shortfall became known in the summer. Since then, dissonances about the music school have dominated the local discussion. Local politicians from various parties have called for complete clarification and stricter controls; They all agreed on one thing: the music school should be preserved and bankruptcy should be averted.
But the planned rescue turned out to be more difficult than Mayor Andreas Kemmelmeyer (non-party electorate), the administration and the municipal council had hoped for. When it became known in November that the people in charge of the music school association had not yet provided the necessary documents and that the desired future concept between the Unterföhringen institution and the Association of Music Schools had not progressed so far, a controversial debate arose in the committee about further compensating for the deficit the facility. In June the municipal council decided that the municipality should pay the previous month’s deficit by September.
In the press conference on Tuesday, Mecke said that it is very much hoped that the local council will continue to make up for the deficit in the future. It was important to those responsible at the music school to use “factual arguments” to oppose the “from our point of view baseless accusations”, as Miriam Merz-Hildenbrand put it. In addition to the concern felt by teachers, parents and children of the music school, “encouragement and a number of donations to the music school are an encouraging vote of confidence for us”. According to Merz-Hildenbrand, 2080 euros were received by Tuesday.
We are very grateful for this and for the support provided by the community to date, said Mecke, who is the director of the music school, the Green Council and the third mayor. He emphasized the great importance of the institute. Since 1989 the music school has given 400,000 hours of lessons for around 4,000 pupils – with considerable success: the Unterföhringen-based company regularly won awards in competitions such as “Jugend musiziert”, and countless concerts in front of a full house of the community had “unforgettable hours of musical edification “gives.
Especially in the months of the pandemic, the music school was an important milestone in the everyday life of families, said Mecke. The two parents present, Alexia Maier and Gunter Winkler, as well as choir director Mike Frey confirmed this. But the “dark shadow of Corona” has been covering the success story for almost two years. In May 2020, the department of early musical education, which the music school offered as a cooperation partner of the workers’ welfare in the day-care centers, broke away. Mecke reported that this in turn caused a loss of revenue of around 25,000 euros. To this day, teaching cannot be offered in the daycare centers.
“Without complaints”
The music school took on the challenge of illuminating its financial situation, assured Mecke. And they followed the recommendation of the municipal council “with great joy” and asked to join the music school association, which is now taking place “in an orderly accession process”. According to Merz-Hildenbrand, the music school has been trying to do this since 2013. Now, according to Mecke, they are very proud and relieved that they subjected themselves to a comprehensive examination by the association in this structured accession process and passed it “without complaints” . The repayments of social security contributions were made from reserves of the music school, part should be repaid from the current income, but then the corona drama began. In September the fees were also increased in order to improve the income situation and reduce the deficit, according to Mecke. It remains to be seen whether all the efforts for the music school will pay off.