Erfurt (dpa/th) - The financially strapped city of Gera wants to secure the December salaries for its employees with an urgent decision by the mayor. A previously planned city council decision did not come about on Monday evening because not enough city council members were present at the special meeting, a spokeswoman for the city administration said on Tuesday when asked. Mayor Julian Vonarb (independent) has already informed the state administration office. "We will definitely pay the salaries," said the spokeswoman. Several media had previously reported about it.
The background is a failed city council decision to reallocate money in order to be able to pay the December salaries. There was de facto no alternative to this, and the city council's non-decision was therefore illegal from the point of view of the mayor, according to the spokeswoman.
One of the plans was to use money from an increase in the country's key allocations for municipalities to pay salaries. After the decision to do so had failed, a special session on Monday should bring a correction to the decision. But of 42 city council members, only seven were present, the spokeswoman said. In order to have a quorum, however, 22 people were needed.
Now it should be an urgent decision. City chief Vonarb is authorized to avert dangers for the city of Gera, the spokeswoman explained. Accordingly, time is of the essence: by Thursday, the salaries must be assigned internally so that they can still be paid on time.
The financial hardship arose, among other things, in the course of overcoming the corona pandemic. According to the spokeswoman, an increased sickness rate led to a greater amount of overtime for the remaining employees. Some of this extra work had to be paid out. In addition, the staff to deal with the crises was partly increased. In addition, there were tariff changes for the civil servants, which would have led to significantly higher costs than planned.
