Public administration offices are currently only heated to 19 degrees to save energy. In order to achieve significantly higher savings, entire buildings are to be closed between Christmas and New Year and the temperature reduced.
Dessau-Roßlau/Magdeburg (dpa/sa) - In order to save energy, a number of municipalities and districts in Saxony-Anhalt want to close their authorities between Christmas and New Year and reduce the temperature there significantly. This was the result of a random survey by the German Press Agency. "In the period from December 24, 2022 to January 1, 2023, the houses will be closed to visitors and the heating will be turned down," says an instruction for the administration of the city of Dessau-Roßlau, for example.
The district administration in the Harz has also decided to close the authorities for visitor traffic from December 27th to December 30th, said a spokesman for the district. This applies to all areas of administration. Only the municipal employment agency is exempt from the regulation, the spokesman explained. As at other closing times, appropriate on-call services would be set up for urgent cases.
The administration of the Saale district will also remain closed to public transport at the same time, a spokesman for the district said. The road traffic office closes for public transport only on December 30th. "However, citizens can be reached by telephone in all offices. Minimum staffing levels are organized in the offices in order to serve urgent citizens' concerns," said the spokesman.
The state capital Magdeburg also wants to close large parts of the administration in order to save heating costs. "In contrast to previous years, the closing time will be a few days longer this time. The period from December 27th to January 5th inclusive was set for this," said a spokesman for the city. Those areas that have to be open due to legal obligations, for example, including the child and youth emergency service or some areas of health and infection protection, are not affected by the closing time in this form.
Even if the district of Wittenberg is not currently planning any such energy-saving regulations, parts of the administration will remain closed here too. "The county government and associated field offices will be closed to visitors on Tuesday, December 27, 2022 and Wednesday, December 28, 2022," said a spokesman. Background: Colleagues should reduce annual leave. "During the Corona phase, around 29,000 overtime hours were worked throughout the house," said the spokesman.
Saxony-Anhalt's municipalities and districts are no exception in the federal government. Numerous other administrations, such as those in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, have also made similar announcements.
