Your financial contribution
Money matters(effective from April, 1th 2022)
I. Public fee
For the visit of our kindergarten, the responsible youth welfare office of your town of residence will set a monthly parental contribution to be paid. For parents residing in Cologne, the Youth Welfare Office of the City of Cologne is responsible; for parents residing outside of Cologne, the Youth Welfare Offices responsible there.
The amount and scale of these fees usually depend on the parental income and the number of dependent children. Information and notifications can be obtained from the responsible Youth Welfare Offices.
II. Sponsorship association
Due to the inadequate financing of our services by the public sector and as compensation for structural and financial disadvantages compared to municipal providers, municipal subsidiaries or social-economic complex providers that belong to the League of Independent Welfare Services, our kindergartens are dependent on additional income. We are therefore financially supported by the “Förderverein Frühe Bildung in der Kita e.V.” (FFB) in the North Rhine-Westphalia regional association of the German Kita Association. We therefore ask all parents to become a member of this association. The monthly contribution per child amounts to:
- for subscribers of current achievements of the basic security SGB II (ALG II, social security benefit): 25 €;
- standard: 195 €;
- for a family income over 100.000 €: 390 €.
The sponsoring association forwards all sponsorship fees paid by the sponsoring members in full to us for use for the kindergarten of the child named in the care agreement.
III. Food money
The parents pay a monthly meal allowance of currently 75 € directly to the kindergarten. Recipients of unemployment benefit II or social security benefits according to the German Social Code Book II, social assistance according to the German Social Code Book XII, benefits according to the Asylum Seekers Act, housing benefit according to the Housing Benefit Act or child allowance according to the Federal Child Benefit Act have the option of reducing the meal allowance to a personal contribution of 1.00 € per lunch via the education and participation package.
IV. A few words about Kita financing
in North Rhine-Westphalia and why we ask you to support us by becoming a member of our sponsorship association
A large part of the budget of our kindergartens comes from public funds (approx. 92%). These funds, which are passed on to us by the state, come on the one hand from general taxes of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. On the other hand, they are counter-financed by the parental contributions, to which your local authority of residence calls upon you as parents and benefitiaries. This is regulated by the Child Education Act of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (Kibiz §§ 32ff.).
- From these donations we pai the salaries of our employees (approx. 70% of the total costs), rents (approx. 20%) and material costs (approx. 10%). Profits are not generated due to the non-profit character. The tax office also checks that any reserves – if they accumulate in a kindergarten year – are promptly returned to the kindergarten (usually immediately in the following year). All available funds are invested for the benefit and direct benefit of the children in care. You can find more respective up-to-date information in the “Transparency and accountability” section of our website.
From a legal point of view, kita financing within the framework of the Kibiz follows the logic of the traditional “grant right”. From a legal point of view, it is less a payment for a care service provided and more a subsidy for a worthy public cause. This can be traced back to a historically evolved landscape of kindergartens in Germany, which was shaped primarily by institutions that offered kindergarten services less out of an interest in educational quality than out of ideological or religious self-image (e.g., a mandate to proclaim the gospel).
Since there was always a religious or ideological particular interest in addition to the public interest (the provision of a spot in a kindergarten) the state had in the past always called upon these institutions to contribute a share of their own (the so-called “Trägeranteil”) (§74 SGB VIII). In the decades leading up to German reunification and beyond, this was not a problem either for the churches or for the large social organizations. For example, in the case of the large complex providers of the Freie Wohlfahrt, cross-subsidization from other profit-oriented business areas (rescue services, patient transport, etc.) was possible. In the case of church institutions, the own contribution was generated from church tax revenues. There were endowment funds at other institutions
In the meantime, however, the kindergarten landscape has changed. Especially in the past decade of the expansion of kindergartens and the legal entitlement to a spot in a kindergarten, new forms of support have been established. Like rainbowtrekkers, many of them were created on the initiative of committed educators who simply wanted to realize their dream of a good kindergarten beyond religious or ideological demands. These non-profit, owner-managed “Kita Start ups” have played a significant role in the expansion of kindergartens in the past decade and in the creation of new childcare places, which a city like Cologne so urgently needs. However, the financial instruments of the large chains of sponsors (church tax, cross-financing, foundations, etc.) are not available to our type of sponsor, which is why there has always been a gap in the financial planning of the kindergarten startups.
At the latest since the introduction of the legal entitlement to a kindergarten spot in 2013, there should have been a move away from financing kindergartens through subsidies to financing fees, as has long been the case in other areas of the social economy. Instead, in North Rhine-Westphalia, a service to which parents have a legal entitlement is financed by requiring providers to bring money to pay for it and finance the legal entitlement of others. This is education policy on the back burner (see WIESNER 2016, WIESNER 2019, DÜNCHHEIM 2019).
The federal legislator had already shown the states in SGB VIII with the subsequently added §74a in 2008 a legal way to end this unequal treatment. Unlike other federal states, however, North Rhine-Westphalia has not yet implemented this revision of the law – which would have ensured fair financing for our form of sponsorship as well. Education remains a state matter. We explain this special situation in North Rhine-Westphalia primarily by the political pressure exerted by the large welfare organizations (AWO, Caritas, Diakonie, Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband, Red Cross), who hope that this will enable them to continue to cartelize the care market in the state.
In order to gain the legally demanded and in times of constantly rising personnel costs also economically necessary provider portion, rainbowtrekkers in the past raised a parents contribution. Exactly this earning instrument is now forbidden on pressure of the large welfare companies appearing here as competitors in the new edition of the child education law valid starting from 01.08.20 (§ 51 Kibiz). In the context of an increasingly planned economy, only the municipalities will in future have the right to accept payments for childcare services from parents. At the same time, however, childcare providers will continue to be obliged to earn their own contribution. This will further aggravate the already existing financial disadvantage of our form of sponsorship.
- Kita providers such as rainbowtrekkers are, by the law change, brought into an existence-endangering situation. Without the generation of additional funds we will be forced to close our kindergartens.
In contrast to other local authorities, Cologne’s city administration has so far refused to provide financial support to so-called “poor supporters” like us, thus contributing to the diversity of supporters in the city. In Düsseldorf and other municipalities, the city administration quite naturally takes over the structural deficit resulting from inadequate state financing (provider share).
In Cologne, administration and politics have not been able to bring themselves to provide such support in the past decades. On the contrary, the chamberlains were glad that their own city coffers were spared as long as parents were willing to finance the kindergartens through their own contributions (which were to be paid in addition to the already hefty municipal parental contributions, which are among the highest in the country).
The country argues politically with the goal of the parental contribution liberty with the law change. This is also from our view a quite desirable social brand. Education should not be dependent on the purse of parents. However it must be ensured in this framework evenly also for the fact that the state finances the ordered services of all providers uniformly and sufficiently instead of continuing to disadvantage innovative, young providers structurally and financially opposite the large welfare companies.
The argumentation of the country with regard to the parental contribution liberty is to that extent also hypocritical in that the responsible ministry – confronted with our legal like financial dilemma – in a statement to rainbowtrekkers brings the employment of promotion associations into the play. According to this statement, membership fees paid to support associations are not parental fees in the sense of the law, which one has initiated oneself.
In search of suitable partners we have decided to cooperate with the
- Advantage of the new regulation: You can not only deduct special expenses (membership fees) from your taxes in full. They also have a much more advantageous tax effect than the previous version as support costs. In addition, there is more additional scope for other childcare costs (e.g. babysitters) in the tax return.
Please note: Your sponsoring membership only ensures that the structural deficit of our kindergartens is covered by the insufficient state financing. We do not have one cent more in our cash box than any other kindergarten in the city! It is only thanks to your funding that we have the same budget as a municipal or church kindergarten or the kindergartens of one of the large welfare organizations.
That we nevertheless offer more than competitors in many areas, e.g.
- bilingual education, upbringing and language acquisition
- international team of empathic, communicative and respectful professionals
- warm, intercultural atmosphere
- multilingual quality management and constant supervision of the team
is exclusively due to our economical use of public subsidies and the commitment of our employees.
If you would like to see your child’s kindergarten equipped disproportionately well (e.g. with material resources), we will continue to depend on additional donations in addition to the supporting membership. These earmarked or free additional donations – for instance at the end of the kindergarten year, at the end of the tax year or on the occasion of a change of group – can also be processed through the sponsoring association and will directly benefit your son or daughter. Instead of plugging holes in the public budget, your donation here creates a creative space for your child and his or her friends in the kindergarten. You can also make a bargain with the tax office, as these donations are also 100% tax deductible. Divert part of your tax burden to where you can directly observe their effect. Make a contribution to an even higher quality in the upbringing and care of your child. In short: Make the rainbow of rainbowtrekkers shine.
We hope that these remarks will help us to explain the legal and financial background to the financing of kindergartens in North Rhine-Westphalia. On behalf of the entire staff, I would like to thank you for your interest and support.
Do you find the conditions as crazy as we do? Then help us to create a political change. Rainbowtrekkers is already committed to the City of Cologne with regard to a future takeover of the sponsorship share by the city in order to relieve our parents and to ensure the diversity of sponsors in the city. Then please write
We demand adequate financing and equal treatment of all forms of support and genuine freedom from parental contributions - also for the parents in Kita Start ups!
Literatur:
- Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Reinhard WIESNER (2016): Gutachten zum Reformbedarf bei der Finanzierung der Kindertagesbetreuung
- Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Reinhard WIESNER (2019): Kita-Finanzierung in Deutschland. Was muss sich ändern? Nicht veröffentlichter Vortrag auf der Mitgliederversammlung de Deutschen Kitaverbands. (Kann zur Verfügung gestellt werden.)
- Prof. Dr. Thomas DÜNCHHEIM (2020): Gutachten.
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