Court of Auditors urges renunciation of new debt

The Court of Audit in Saxony insists on further steps to consolidate the state's finances and recommends avoiding new debt. The Free State should continue "on the path of Saxony's solid budgetary policy" and the budget should generally manage without loans, demanded Jens Michel, President of the Court of Audit, at the presentation of the annual report.

According to the law, the federal states can take out loans to a certain extent. The Basic Law grants them an annual credit limit of 0.35 percent of gross domestic product. According to Finance Minister Christian Piwarz (CDU), this would be around 700 million euros per year in the case of Saxony.

Court of Auditors considers the number of state employees to be too high

The auditors once again criticized the number of state employees. In 2023, total personnel expenditure would have reached a record value of 8.3 billion euros. The staffing plan has been too high for years.

"The clock is ticking. The time bought to act has become extremely short," emphasized Court of Audit Director Isolde Haag. On a positive note, it was noted that the current double budget has halted job growth. However, the number of 382 jobs cut was only of a "symbolic nature".

Saxon police dogs are also an issue

For the current report, the auditors of the Court of Audit also took a close look at the service dogs of the Saxon police. They cost the Free State 130,000 euros every year. The Court of Audit criticized the fact that the current stock of 107 active service dogs is not based on any requirements planning. The recommendation was made to fundamentally recalculate the expense allowance for service dogs and then review it regularly.