The Court of Auditors must ensure the proper use of public money and has the power to sanction those who do not use it wisely. On November 14, 2024, she published a press release online announcing the conviction of the mayor of Bantzenheim (Haut-Rhin), Roland Onimus, as well as a former town hall secretary, reports L’Alsace Monday November 25, 2024. The first was fined €5,000 and the second €10,000.
In this press release, the institution specifies that “the mayor of the town had requisitioned the public accountant when the latter had refused the payment of irregular compensation to the former town hall secretary, when the latter retired”.
She fixed her compensation
While she left town hall on January 7, 2023, she received several compensations for the current year. “A monthly allowance for duties, constraints and expertise (IFSE) as well as an annual compensation supplement (CIA) for amounts not prorated to actual working time for the year 2023 […] compensation for the 70 days appearing on their time savings account”lists the Court of Auditors. However, the municipal council had voted in the past on deliberations not authorizing this type of payment or monetary compensation.
If the secretary received €12,415.91 in compensation, it is because the mayor trusted her. The civil servant decided on the remuneration arrangements and the local elected official did not check anything.
An experienced civil servant and an overwhelmed mayor
She justified a “long experience in the territorial civil service” and belonged “to a category A body”. These two pieces of information constituted aggravating circumstances for the Court of Auditors. “She could not ignore the irregular nature of the payments and the consequences of the act of requisition”she judges in her press release.
“The Court retained as an aggravating circumstance for the mayor his experience as a local elected official at the municipal and intercommunal level”we can read. But she also took into account the investment of the city councilor “in the municipal responsibilities of a small town with few staff” what “mitigated his responsibility”.
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