Judge cuts off the recovery of top salary Artez
In the autumn of 2015, former interim director Gerben Eggink and management bureau BoerCroon were forced by education minister Bussemaker to jointly repay more than 84 euros to the Arnhem University of the Arts Artez. That was wrong, the Amsterdam court finds, which at the same time concludes that Eggink earned 44 thousand euros too much.
BoerCroon and Eggink had to pay Artez 26.184 and 58.279 euros respectively after the Education Inspectorate found that the Top Income Standards Act (WNT) was exceeded in 2013. It was the first time that with this law the minister brought back the remuneration of a former administrator to the school. BoerCroon and Eggink paid under protest, lodged an objection and eventually went to court. He recently put an end to the substantiation of the recovery. Costs for the management agency are incorrectly included in the remuneration, said the court.
The next step is for the minister to make a new decision on the objections before the end of this month. The inspectorate, which is charged with enforcing the WNT on behalf of the minister, informed the Education magazine this week that it is still studying the ruling. BoerCroon sees the ruling as a victory. Eggink could not be reached for comment.
See here a concise timeline of the procedure
See here a reconstruction by the Education Magazine (December 2016)
Kafkaesque
The Artez file is increasingly taking on a Kafkaesque character. The case is a test case for the WNT standard for interim directors. But the rules that are now being tested have been abolished a year and a half ago. In 2016, a completely new standard for interim directors was introduced. The outcome of the procedure is important for other WNT files from the past that have been put on hold by the cabinet for the time being. One of them is a second Artez file, which relates to Eggink's remuneration in 2014. Artez University of Applied Sciences itself is not a party to the proceedings, but the outcome does determine whether it has to hand over the money received. It's not that far yet.
At the beginning of 2013, Artez suddenly ran out of board after the then supervisory board sent the two-man executive board home. As of March 4, 2013, Eggink was hired through management agency BoerCroon. Initially for a few months, but the contract was continually renewed and Eggink did not leave until May 1, 2014.
Office costs
The lawsuit revolves around two questions: do 'desk costs' fall under the WNT standard, and did Eggink work full-time or part-time?
In 2013, BoerCroon invoiced a fee of 1.400 euros per day to Artez for the deployment of the interim director. Of this, 1.300 euros went to the Eggink, the office charged the remaining 100 euros as a surcharge. In addition, BoerCroon charged 500 euros per day for 'services', such as supervision of the interim worker. According to the agency, this also included a brokerage fee for recruitment and selection.
BoerCroon kept 1.900 euros of the 2013 euros (excluding VAT) that Artez paid per day in 600. All together, this amounts to 82.500 euros, which the inspectorate included in the remuneration. The state attorney argued during the March session that all costs incurred by the school for fulfilling the position should be included.
But BoerCroon was proved right by the judge: the 500 euros in separately invoiced office costs do not fall under the WNT standard. The remaining 100 euros in storage will be. Although the interim director did not receive it himself, Eggink agreed during the session that it should be included in his remuneration.
Part-time
That remuneration exceeds the WNT standard in 2013 by 43.744 euros, the court has now established. The judge concludes that Eggink did not work full-time but worked approximately four days a week, even though Eggink claimed otherwise during the hearing: “I had to replace two directors by myself in the chaos that had arisen. I was working on it more than full time. ”
The court concludes that Eggink worked part-time on the basis of contracts and the number of days declared: 137,5. The argument that the director 'has a full-time responsibility that is expressed in a full-time availability' does not hold, according to the judge, 'because he has not invoiced that responsibility and availability full-time.'
Disadvantaged
During the hearing, Eggink said he hoped the lawsuit would bring him rehabilitation. “I have been portrayed as a grabber, one who has broken the law. I have been big with my head in the newspapers. It has damaged my reputation immensely. This has put me at a financial disadvantage. I am still emotionally affected. ”
Maintaining the top salary standard has become a long and bumpy road in this test case. At the beginning of 2015, the Inspectorate found that Eggink had earned 154.186 euros too much. Artez initially had to recover that money from the ex-director and the management agency, but did not yield any results.
When the Education Inspectorate issued a penalty on behalf of the Minister in October 2015, a new calculation suddenly reduced the excess to 84 euros. After Artez had received the money, the inspection found that the claim had been under-calculated by an error of 28 euros, the Education magazine reported late last year. The Inspectorate then decided not to correct this anymore.
