Questions and answers about municipal kindergarten places

Why are kindergarten places being cut?

Jena has 73 kindergartens run by 26 different providers. The largest provider is the city itself. It offers places in 11 municipal kindergartens. As of 01.03.2023, there were 6,115 children aged 0-6.5 years living in Jena. Of these, 5,375 children were being cared for in kindergartens with a capacity of 6,113 places on this date.

City Council resolution no. 23/2115-BV, adopted on 27.09.2023, provides comprehensive information on the need for savings.

There has been a trend reversal in the number of births since 2020. The number of annual births has declined significantly. While the 2017-19 cohorts were still 1,000-1,100 children strong, there were fewer births in each cohort from 2020 to 2023. In 2023, the number of births fell to its lowest level to date of around 750 births. That is a quarter fewer than the number of children born in 2018.

The trend reversal in the number of births since 2020 quickly led to the number of unused nursery places rising to around 800 places. In November 2023, the average capacity utilization of nursery schools ranged between 43% and 97%.

This means that there is a comfortable situation of being able to get a kindergarten place in almost any facility in the city. Any request for a kindergarten place, even for visiting children from the surrounding area, can be answered positively immediately.

The staffing of the kindergartens is based on the number of children enrolled at defined cut-off dates. Only on this basis is it refinanced for the providers by the state. Therefore, in contrast to the room situation, there are no staff surpluses.

The costs for the underutilized homes are borne by the city alone. Calculated on the basis of the 800 places not required, this amounts to an annual financial volume of € 2.7 million, which is spent on the building costs of kindergarten places that are not required.

Due to the difficulty in predicting the size of future birth cohorts, it was agreed and decided with City Council resolution 23/2115-BV to initially only save 500 places in a time frame up to the end of 2027 in order to be able to react to rising birth rates with the generously calculated capacity still available at that time. At present, such a development is not foreseeable in the next five years.

How is the reduction of 500 kindergarten places to be implemented?

At its meeting in June 2023, the Youth Welfare Committee initially decided on a voluntary phase for the providers, during which the providers themselves can suggest proposals or measures to save kindergarten places. These proposals and measures include, for example, merging nursery schools of the same provider in one property while giving up or returning another property, the joint use of a building by two nursery schools of different providers or the return of rentable space to the property owner or property manager, which then reduces the amount of space to be financed by the city.

If this does not result in sufficient places to be saved, the priority list also adopted by the Youth Welfare Committee will be used as a basis for any further savings that may become necessary.

This priority list sorts the kindergartens according to capacity utilization and financing and economic efficiency criteria. These financing and profitability criteria are, for example, subsidies granted for refurbishment that would have to be repaid within a certain period of time if the purpose of the property refurbished with these funds changes, or properties that have been refurbished at great financial expense in the last few years and months with the purpose of being used as a kindergarten.

It is currently hoped that the 500 kindergarten places to be saved can be achieved in agreement with the providers during the voluntary phase. This also includes the capacity of the municipal "Pinocchio" kindergarten.

Why can't the city simply accept that, with dwindling numbers of children, more space is used for educational work for the remaining children without having to give up kindergartens? In connection with the introduction of the legal entitlement in recent years, kindergarten capacities have been increased. Can these increases not be reversed?

As already mentioned, the City Council has committed itself to assuming the entire costs for the properties used as nursery schools. These costs are incurred in full even if the capacity of the kindergarten is not fully utilized. The ongoing consumption costs for heating, cleaning, janitor support and depreciation costs must continue to be financed in full despite dwindling capacity utilization. Calculated over the course of a year, these amount to an estimated €13 million for all facilities.

This money is urgently needed for the work of the city administration, particularly in the social sector.

As a result of the increase in numbers in previous years due to the guarantee of the legal entitlement to a kindergarten place, the refugee crises and the Ukraine crisis, it is often said that the conditions in the kindergartens are supposedly cramped. Why can't the opportunity of the declining take-up of kindergarten places be used to provide more space and more room for the children?

The densification in recent years has been caused by the state legislator, which has drawn up the requirements for the operating license to run a kindergarten that 5 m² of indoor space (educational use) and 10 m² of outdoor space must be available for children aged 0-2 years.

For older kindergarten children aged 3-6 years, 2.5 m² of indoor space and 10 m² of outdoor space must be available.

The space-child ratios based on the respective maximum capacity of the kindergartens were recorded by the city administration on the basis of the providers' own information and evaluated by the city administration.

The average figure for kindergartens run by different providers is roughly 5.1 m² per child. This means that, based on a theoretical maximum capacity utilization of the buildings, there is generally significantly more space available on average than the space per child specified by the state.

It must also be taken into account that all nursery schools are now struggling with dwindling occupancy rates. As outlined above, it is estimated that the occupancy rate is between 70% and 95%. This means that most kindergartens deviate even further from the maximum possible occupancy rate. This means that the additional educationally usable space is already available to a greater extent. They would increase as the number of children continues to fall.

As the available staff is always measured by the number of children actually present, empty rooms can remain unused in educational practice.

In this respect, it makes neither economic nor pedagogical sense to operate kindergarten properties with perhaps only half occupancy.

The head of the "Pinocchio" kindergarten approached his area manager in early fall last year. He explained that 20 children would be coming to the school in 2024 and 17 children in 2025. In 2026, 20 children will leave for school again. By then, only a third of the children currently being looked after will still be there. Despite intensive advertising and good work as well as the good reputation of the facility, there are hardly any registrations that could even come close to compensating for the children leaving.

If we did nothing, the kindergarten would still be empty in the foreseeable future.

It is generally known that Thuringia is the federal state with the longest statutory opening hours and the worst childcare ratio in Germany. Why can't the supposedly wealthy city of Jena improve the childcare ratio in its kindergartens at its own expense?

Legally, this would be a voluntary service. However, the city must have the financial capacity to do so in the long term.

In the course of the dutiful approval of the budget adopted by the city council, there have been repeated warnings from the state's legal supervisory authority in recent years that the city's long-term ability to pay is at the extreme permissible limit.

A permanent voluntary contribution such as increasing the staffing ratio in nursery schools outside of the statutory regulations of the state would place a long-term burden on the budget and cannot be afforded on this scale under any circumstances.

If the city were no longer able to meet its long-term financial obligations, budget protection concepts would be required that would call all voluntary services into question. This would also mean that the city would lose its own financial scope.

In addition, the state would then withdraw to the point that the city is obliged to initially orient itself to the state's requirements regarding the staffing ratios for kindergartens in order to ensure equal living conditions and the same cost framework in the shared federal state.

The funds that the city makes available from its budget for kindergartens are already the largest single item in the budget.

The gross costs for nursery schools amount to €60 million per year.51% of this (€31 million) is borne by the city itself, without receiving any (not even pro rata) counter-financing from the state, the federal government or other third parties. In Thuringia and beyond, this is the largest financial contribution known to us at municipal level for nursery schools.

The city of Jena does much more for its kindergarten landscape than other municipalities.

A state contribution to these additional costs outside of the specified care ratio is legally excluded.

The city could also, in accordance with the principle of equal treatment for the use of public funds, not only for its own kindergartens, but also exclusively for all kindergartens with an improved staffing ratio. This would result in immense costs, which are regularly incurred.

Furthermore, these additional funds are not actually available. They would first have to be planned in a supplementary budget to the current budget or for the next double budget at the expense of other measures.

It should be noted that when allocating additional funds, various interests would have to be weighed up within the administration and, above all, politically. In addition, the challenges in the social sector are likely to increase further in the coming years and higher costs are to be expected as a result. In this respect, no additional money will be available.

The situation regarding the childcare ratio in nursery schools in the state of Thuringia would be better if the federal funds made available to the federal states under the last federal government's Good Daycare Act were not primarily spent on free nursery school years, but on improving quality - better childcare ratios, more staff - especially as low-income families are already exempt from parental fees thanks to the federal government's education and participation package.

This criticism has been repeatedly voiced to the state government by local authorities, municipal umbrella organizations and expert committees. Unfortunately, the state government has only recently realized that the childcare ratios need to be gradually made more favourable. Since 2019, the staffing ratio has improved from 1 educator to 11 children to 1 educator to 10 children. However, this is still far from sufficient. We expect the state government to make further improvements to the childcare ratio.