Innsbruck (OTS) – In public companies, it requires special care. This applies not only to state companies, but also to municipal companies there should be clear guidelines for managing directors’ salaries. There is a need to catch up here.
That’s the thing with executive salaries in public companies. In fact, there is constant public debate as to whether the amount is justified, and politicians then argue that companies that are in competition and are described as marketable should be paid the income that is customary in the industry. Otherwise you wouldn’t get the best managers. That rationale sounds plausible, but the problem lies one level deeper. As the state audit office explained back in 2015, the state’s informal requirements were nevertheless creatively circumvented with excessive pension regulations and bonus payments.
At the same time, the so-called manager guideline for non-marketable companies in which the state has a stake, which has been in force since 2012, should prevent their managing directors from earning more than the state governor. This actually created sustainable awareness in many areas. On the other hand, the fact that the head ofLebensraum Holding, Josef Margreiter, has had the travel agency license for the holding subsidiary Tirol Werbung paid princely with 2000 euros per month since 2019 raises the question of why he was granted this “bonus”. After all,Lebensraum Tirol Holding falls under the manager guideline. Isn’t enough enough?
If now, due to the financial difficulties of the community association’s own service company GemNova, it also becomes known that its replaced managing director has earned more than 17,000 euros gross per month, then many will ask how that works. Public communities or not: the community association is an association and therefore the manager guideline does not apply to GemNova. Although the state has had to contribute EUR 1.3 million so far, this has had no effect on the managing director’s salary.
There are no contract templates at all for outsourced municipal companies. There is a lot of catching up to do here, and the Federal Court of Auditors is currently warning of this using the example of the municipality of Schwaz. After all, public companies have a clear mission in the sense of the community, although they are often active in the private sector. Transparency and a sense of proportion when it comes to salaries cannot be bashfully brushed aside.
Because there is one thing that the board members and managers of public companies should always be aware of: They do not manage their own assets, but those of the citizens.
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