More than 12,000 euros per month: Federal Audit Office criticizes dream salaries for the bosses of party

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Headquarters of the Federal Audit Office in Bonn

Photo: imago / Steinach

The Federal Audit Office harshly criticizes the salaries of the management staff of party-affiliated political foundations in Germany.

According to SPIEGEL information, this emerges from a new test report from the authority.

The examiners complain that the foundation managers are paid too much.

At the same time, they accuse the Federal Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for promoting the party-affiliated foundations, of insufficiently monitoring the use of the funds.

The criticism of the Federal Audit Office (BRH) affects all political foundations that received so-called global grants from the Federal Ministry of the Interior in the audit period from 2015 to 2019.

The BRH report does not name any names, but according to SPIEGEL information it is about the following foundations:

• Konrad Adenauer Foundation (close to CDU)

• Hanns Seidel Foundation (close to CSU)

• Friedrich Ebert Foundation (close to the SPD)

• Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FDP-related)

• Heinrich Böll Foundation (close to the Greens)

• Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (left-hand side)

The AfD-affiliated Desiderius Erasmus Foundation was not the subject of the investigation because it was not yet constituted in the 2015 to 2019 test period or received no corresponding funding.

Violations of budget law

During their audits, the auditors encountered numerous violations of budget law. For political foundations that are financed from the federal budget, a so-called betterment ban applies. According to this, “institutionally funded institutions may not do their employees better” than comparable federal employees. But it is precisely this prohibition that is evidently being systematically and nationwide disregarded. According to the BRH report, the foundation bosses - often they are deserving functionaries of the associated parties - receive a lot more money than they are actually entitled to.

"The foundations paid their board members, managing directors or general secretaries non-tariff remuneration up to the level of salary group B9," writes the Federal Audit Office.

"That is currently more than 12,000 euros a month."

"Salary level like top officials"

The heads of the comparatively small foundations thus achieved "a salary level like top officials", such as the "Presidents of the Federal Criminal Police Office or the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees".

At the same time, the Federal Audit Office came across bloated management structures that contained up to "three management positions" or tax-financed chauffeurs who received "a lump sum payment as head drivers, contrary to the collective agreement."

In order to overturn the prohibition of betterment, they apparently reached deep into their bag of tricks.

The BRH writes that top salaries have been improved with the help of a fictitious »supply surcharge«.

"In this way, the licensing authority created the possibility of paying out a non-tariff surcharge of up to 30 percent for management staff in addition to the basic salary in the salary table."

The Ministry of the Interior, headed by Horst Seehofer (CSU) since 2018, has "insufficiently checked and enforced compliance with the prohibition of betterment," the BRH found.

In addition, the Federal Ministry of Finance was not sufficiently involved.

The Federal Audit Office calls on the internal department to "prevent the unjustified payment of supply surcharges" and henceforth to "ensure effective control of the use of funds".

Seehofer's officials have meanwhile signaled to the Court of Auditors that they should start talks with the Ministry of Finance, as requested, in order to agree on a "general regulation" for the payment of the foundation managers.

According to BRH, however, the ministry largely rejected the criticism of the tricky “supply surcharges”.

This year the Federal Ministry of the Interior intends to support the party-affiliated foundations with "global grants" totaling around 141 million euros.