Oberursel’s No-Win Financial Situation

It can’t be easy being in charge of Oberursel’s finances.  After two rounds of spending cuts and tax increases, the town’s budget could budget could be in the black to the tune of around €4.5 million after a sudden windfall of corporate income tax (Gewerbesteuer) and further cuts in the culture department.

That is, it would be if the next higher level of government – the Kreis – had not increased the amount that the town has to pay for their services, including the school, by almost  €11 million for the coming year, leaving with the town with a deficit in 2014 of just over €6 million.

So once again the town called a meeting of its residents to discuss the next round of savings, holding it this year in the Burgwiesenhalle in Bommersheim.  The hall may not have been full – around 160 people turned up – but there were a significant number of children and teenagers present to protest against the planned cuts in funding for the “Jugendtreffs” in Weißkirchen and Stierstadt. [Read more…]

How Oberursel plans to reduce its deficit in the coming years

At the town council meeting last week the town’s treasurer (Stadtkämmerer) , Thorsten Schorr, held what is best described as his budget speech (“Haushaltsrede”) for the coming year. Technically the budget (“Haushalt”) is not actually decided yet and will be discussed by the finance committee in their next sitting so that the council can vote on it in November, but the speech outlined where costs are increasing, where cuts will need to be made, and how the town intends to reduce their deficit by 2018.

The full version of the speech and the draft version of the budget will be available as PDF downloads on the town’s website this week, but obviously in German.

So here is a summary of the main points in English.

The speech started with the first potential saving – the members of the council and the executive will only receive printed copies of the 1060 page budget if they actually request it, otherwise they too will be receiving a PDF version. This should not be a problem, as they have all been issued with iPads, and with other official documents moving to this form as well the investment costs for the iPads will apparently be more than outweighed by the saving in printing costs.

Then came the bad news. [Read more…]

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