Inspectorate: severance pay for former chairman of Horizon College, partly unjustified
Former chairman of the board John van den Langenberg has wrongly received 34.873 euros when he left ROC Horizon College in Alkmaar, the Education Inspectorate concludes after an investigation that became public today. The amount was paid back to the school last month.
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The chairman and his fellow director René van Schalkwijk were waved goodbye in 2016 with a severance package, like the Education magazine in 2017 reported. Van den Langenberg closed the door behind him at the end of January 2016, but remained on the payroll for another year until February 2017. In that period he received just under 162 thousand euros. Including holiday pay, year-end bonus and pension payments, which were also paid. Van Schalkwijk stopped at the end of 2016 and received more than 126 grand in one go.
Saved bapo leave, the institution called it in its annual report. According to the Standardization of Top Incomes Act (Wnt), the 'salary' would fall under transitional law, a tolerance regulation for agreements made in the past. Chairman Jan Franx of the Supervisory Board, until recently VVD alderman in Gooise Meren and currently acting mayor of the municipality of Koggenland, defended the fees when they came out a year and a half ago: "Both directors retired and have their saved bapo hours paid out, in accordance with agreements made in the past.”
Transitional law
Daar goes the Education Inspectorate, which is an investigation set, not into it. At the end of 2006, the directors reached an arrangement with the supervisory board in which they waive their BAPO rights under the collective labor agreement. Instead, the MBO school set aside an annual amount (12 euros, according to the Inspectorate) that the directors would receive as wages when their employment ended or if they retired earlier.
The Inspectorate charges this agreement as a severance payment, for which the statutory maximum in the Wnt is 75 thousand euros. Van den Langenberg exceeds this by just under 87 thousand euros, Van Schalkwijk more than 51 thousand. But severance pay also falls under a transitional law that tolerates overruns, according to the Inspectorate.
This does not apply to the holiday pay, year-end bonus and pension payment that chairman Van den Langenberg received after his resignation: 26.280 euros in 2016 and 8.593 euros in 2017. Added up: 34.873 euros, an amount that was eventually repaid at the end of June. His colleague Van Schalkwijk did not receive those extras.
