499 hours of overtime Municipality must pay principal 50,000 francs in arrears

The municipality of Würenlingen AG has been ordered to pay a former principal around 50,000 francs for overtime. The municipality refused to make the back payment, which is why the case ended up in court.

An Aargau municipality must pay a retired co-headmistress 499 hours of overtime, i.e. around CHF 50,000 plus interest. This was decided by the administrative court. However, the ruling is not yet legally binding.

But how did it come about that a municipality has to pay so much money to a former principal? The woman submitted her claim shortly before her retirement. She demanded 106,000 francs for 1022 hours of overtime that she had worked between August 2020 and March 2021. The municipality rejected this - as well as the proposal of the arbitration committee for personnel issues to pay half.

This led to a hearing before the Administrative Court in August, which has now published its written ruling.

Claim only partially approved

The lawsuit was only partially approved - but this is still a victory for the principal. The municipality was obliged to pay her around CHF 43,000 net as well as CHF 3,000 in social security contributions. With an interest rate of 5 percent, the amount rises to over 50,000 francs.

In addition, the municipality must also pay fees of CHF 5,562 and legal fees of CHF 13,500.

In court, the former head teacher stated that she had worked from 6 a.m. to 11 or 11.30 p.m. She had claimed 499 hours of overtime, 329 for August to December 2020 and 170 for January to March 2021. The court confirmed this and calculated a gross hourly wage (including 25 percent overtime premium) of 91.70 francs based on an annual salary of around 154,000.

Municipal council cannot understand the ruling

"The municipal council cannot understand how the court came to this decision," says municipal mayor Patrick Zimmermann to the "Aargauer Zeitung" (AZ). It has not yet been decided whether it will appeal the ruling to the Federal Supreme Court.

The municipality also criticized the claimed overtime. They were implausible. The principal's entries in the time recording tool provided by the canton were not usable.

However, the school board, which was replaced by the municipal council as the appointing authority in February 2021, had approved 329 hours of overtime for 2020 and issued an overtime order for 2021.

Zimmermann testified in court that he was unaware of the order and had not received the minutes from the school board. The court contradicted him and found the statement "dubious". The municipal council had not revoked the order, the minutes had been sent to the municipal mayor and he had been informed of the payment by a cantonal employee.

Zimmermann stands by his statements. At a meeting in October 2020 with the full municipal council, the overtime order was not mentioned "by the employer authorities at the time, the school administration". Moreover, the extract from the minutes submitted afterwards was not validly signed.

An understaffed school administration and the Covid-19 pandemic

According to the five-member school board, the main reason for the principal's additional work was the understaffed school administration, the Covid-19 pandemic, the commissioning of a new school building and the induction of a new co-teacher.

Since then, the number of school administration staff has been increased. At that time, there were two people at 110 percent, today there are 150 percent with three people. "There is no connection between this case and the school administration's staffing percentages," Zimmermann states. "The situation today is no longer comparable to August 2021, as we have reorganized the school administration and school management."

At the time, the municipal council - unlike the school administration - saw no need to increase the number of administrative staff. Zimmermann explains: "A comparison with other schools of the same size also showed no need for action."

Entire school board resigns

These differing views led to tensions between the municipal council and the school board. In the end, the entire school board resigned in January 2021. The reason: "irreconcilable differences". They also criticized the working conditions of some school employees.

According to the municipal council, "the biggest differences with the school board lay in the economical use of taxpayers' money and the targeted deployment of personnel resources".

The verdict now also shows that the Würenlingen co-principal, who took up his post in August 2020, had accumulated 315 hours of overtime by the end of the year. These were not paid out either. The principal referred "AZ" to the municipality as his employer and Zimmermann replied: "Managers in the administration and private sector usually work overtime, which is compensated with good management salaries."

Philipp Grolimund, Co-President of the Association of Head Teachers in the Canton of Aargau, sees the case as an exception: "It's more of an isolated case, otherwise we would know of other cases". However, he emphasizes that smaller schools can come under pressure more quickly in times of crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic, so he is hardly surprised by the high level of overtime.