It is one of those odd stories that won't appear in German national news and probably less than 10,000 people will read about it in the regional news.
Two cities in Hessen (smaller towns) sued the German government for refugee funding that they felt was owed to them. The towns? Bad Vilbel and Karben.....roughly ten miles north of Frankfurt.
By the Bundestag situation....cities can usually claim a max of 7.3 Euro a day for each refugee that they take in. That's to cover food and shelter. You can do the math.....if you really push hard and skimp....doing strictly cheap dinners....you can cover the needs of an average guy on 7.30 Euro a day. My wife (the practical German) says that she could feed me off five Euro a day....but I probably wouldn't like her selection of food and I'd have to get use to soup on the menu five or six days a week for dinner. Coffee would be cheap and it's best not to question sugar treats with the wife's cheap budget menu.
What the two towns said was that their costs comes closer to 13.40 Euro a day per refugee.
The judge reviewed things and said 'no'. The ruling: Az .: 2 K 2415 / 15.GI.A and 2 K 3563 / 14.GI.A.
If you dig into this....the district itself receives from the state....a flat monthly fee of several hundred Euro. Part of this goes to the court system handling the applicant (the refugee). Then the county health department (your social worker system).
The city response was that they are spending a fair amount of money on 'rent', staff members and support staff. They want their 'share'...their 'cut'.
The verdict handed back suggested that the judge agree to some degree....suggesting an appeal in some fashion.
A difficult deal? Well, this is one of the problems with the whole refugee episode....by the federal government of Berlin handing this down to each state and dumping it to various cities to manage....there is no central theme. One city might run a five-star program.....maxing out on donations and using local charity operations to cover expenses. One city might run the absolute minimum of support, and just push people into some steel building shelter deal and cheap food for each day. There is no standard, and no real authority from Berlin.....which would beg questions from the public. Currently, other than journalists showing up and video-taping an operation, and an occasional minister showing up from the state or Berlin crowd.....no one says much.
The 7.30 Euro a day? In the Air Force, I had the fortune of getting a chow-hall card in my youth. Each guy on base.....used the card and visited the chow-hall three times a day for a free deal. Generally, it was all worth roughly five dollars (I still remember the 1984 amount). It's probably up to eight or nine dollars a day now. We used to complain over the quality of the meals and eventually (it usually took two years)....we all stopped visiting the chow-hall and buying food with our own cash. I suspect the refugees are thinking along the same lines, and begging off more and more money from the social workers.....to go shop on their own.
Fair share? It all depends on your view of fair.
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