The office of the Central Bohemian Governor, Jaroslava Pokorná Jermanová (YES), paid at least two officials a reward for a job well done. He sent about 500,000 one at a time to each.
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These amounts are completely unusual for the public administration – it does not happen that an official receives such a generous bonus at once.
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But what’s more: both employees of the Central Bohemian Region received above-standard bonuses after resigning from office.
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This special case, Seznam Zprávy, came across during a search for a sweeping payment by the region’s management to a group of VIP officials, close collaborators of President Pokorná Jermanová. In the last two years, some officials have received extraordinary bonuses ranging from 60 to 85 thousand each month.
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So in the end, they had a total of about 150,000 a month.
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The List of Reports according to the Information Act obtained an overview of salaries and bonuses. However, without specifying specific names, the region only assigned numbers to individual officials. So it is not possible to clearly determine who it is.
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Answer: silence on the phone
The first case is an official with number 6.
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Throughout 2018, his superiors credited him with 60 to 75 thousand a month. Its annual income this year reached almost 1.8 million. Last April, however, the money line stopped: the tables provided by the region show that no salary or remuneration has flowed since, which means that the official has resigned.
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The table of remuneration provided by the region clearly shows how two employees each received half a million crowns before leaving.
At the same time, however, in April, official number 6 received a reward of 510 thousand. For the record: this is a bonus that the employer may grant under the Labor Code for the successful completion of an extremely demanding task.
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The second official with number 7 had a similar situation, in the first six months of the previous year he was regularly rewarded by his superiors: three times for 60 thousand, twice for 70 thousand and once for 20 thousand. With July, the employee leaves – this time with a reward of 498 thousand.
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Although the names of the officials are anonymized, the List Report from the comparison of departures and arrivals of senior officials of the region identified that the second case sits on the former head of the transport department, Jarmila Jenčíková. She left the region by bilateral agreement just the year before last in July.
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When the News List asked her if she had received a half-million reward for her resignation, Jenčíková was silent for a few seconds. Then she ended the call and did not answer the phone and did not answer the text message asking for a comment.
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Even the regional office does not want to explain exactly what these two officials – moreover, in the last month when they were still working for the region – did the extraordinary thing that they deserved half a million. Only in response to requests under the “Information Act” did he generally state that “remuneration paid in 2018 and 2019 was awarded to all employees for the successful completion of specified tasks”.
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President Jermanová Pokorná did not respond to the detailed questions, nor did her spokesperson. List of reports, for example, tried to ask what was the point of sending so much money to an employee who was just as leaving.
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The regions are in danger of control and problems
One explanation is that it was not really a job bonus. But for a smooth resignation. “Unfortunately, this happens quite often,” said Sarka Homfray, a labor law specialist from the Trade Union of State Authorities.
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Or the employee gets a choice: We don’t want you here anymore, but when you sign the agreement, we’ll give you money for the trip. And because in such a case – even with officials – there is no official severance pay, the money paid out is disguised as a reward.
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Which in publicly funded offices can be a real problem. If an inspection from the Ministry of the Interior finds out, there is a risk that the office will have to return the money to the state budget. And then recover this damage from whoever decided to use this trick.
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Moreover, as has already been said, the Central Bohemian office cannot explain the payment of hundreds of thousands of bonuses. According to lawyer, Homfray is also wrong. “Of course, every reward must be justified by the work result. It is not possible to write vaguely that she was admitted for fulfilling her tasks, “she added.
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After all, a few years ago, in the event of a dispute between a Liberec official and the municipality, the Supreme Court ruled that camouflage severance pay as an extraordinary bonus was a violation of the Labor Code. And that such a decision of the Office to award remuneration is invalid.
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