Thousands of appeals against civil servants' salaries pending
Tens of thousands of appeals against civil servants' salaries and pensions from previous years are still pending in Hesse. This is the result of an answer from Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU) to a parliamentary question from the SPD parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament. According to the answer, the total number of appeals received by the Kassel Regional Council for the years 2015 to 2023 amounted to 125,472, including 1,660 appeals for 2015 that were received after the deadline and rejected in March 2018. According to the Ministry of the Interior, however, all others are open "due to a lack of decision-making maturity".
Teachers in particular objected to their salaries (57,740 objections), followed by police officers (30,901), civil servants in the tax administration (19,057) and the justice department (10,638). A further 7,136 appeals came from other areas. As one civil servant can lodge an objection for several years, the number of objections does not correspond to the number of people who lodged an objection.
The Hessian Administrative Court had ruled that the remuneration of civil servants violates the Basic Law. According to this ruling, civil servants were not paid enough from 2013 to 2020. However, the Federal Constitutional Court still has to make a binding decision on future salaries. With this in mind, Beuth explained that the scope and amount of any necessary additional payments had not yet been determined. However, the state government had already made considerable efforts with the 2023/24 double budget "to also take into account the current issues regarding appropriate remuneration".
In the interests of budget consolidation, the state government had decided at the time to leave salaries and pensions for 2015 at the level of the adjustment on April 1, 2014. This decision and the earnings opportunities had "no discernible impact" on the growing shortage of skilled workers in the public sector, said Beuth. This is "largely the result of demographic change in society, but also of global competition for skilled workers and advancing digitalization" with new, highly specialized job profiles. Many measures have also been taken in recent years to recruit skilled workers and young talent.
Despite the pending appeals, the state government implemented tariffs that left salaries and pensions for 2015 at the level of the adjustment in 2014. Consequently, there have been criticisms in the public service sector about the adequacy of remuneration, calling for a review of tariffs.
Source: www.dpa.com
