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Local News Summary of February, 10th

  • Wrong box checked: canton had to resend 20,000 wage statements
  • Cause of death in Muttenz prison identified
  • More people leave churches in Basel-Stadt

Wrong box checked: canton had to resend 20,000 wage statements

Be it a wage statement, the tax return or the tax bill: upstanding Basel citizens rarely look forward to letters from Fischmarkt. Last month, however, the 20,000 cantonal employees of Basel-Stadt received their wage statements twice, since their net salary had been miscalculated in the first version.

Letters from Fischmarkt are mostly feared in Basel, and nobody likes to receive them. The tax administration building is located right next to the lovely town house of the civil community, but when letters arrive from the tax office, it is not usually good news.

Last month, thousands of cantonal employees had particularly bad luck when received post from the Financial Department twice however instead of bad news, it was statements which arrived. The administration has tried to appease the situation by stating that it was “not really a mistake”. In official language, the statement received by teachers, hospital workers, and city business employees sounded rather complicated: “Unfortunately, we realised in the meantime that an unplanned correction occurred in the contributions for the occupational benefit plans of some employees.”

The result: wrong net salary

At least the city provided additional information for the wage statement. Yet even when reading this, the situation is not entirely clear.“However, no correction is effectively needed for this matter, meaning that the sum for the occupational benefits shown in paragraph 10.1 of the wage statement is wrong,” it states.

So “no correction” is needed, even though it “is wrong”. This is kind of hard to understand. On the request of barfi.ch, Andrea Wiedemann, from the Financial Department, explained the matter as follows: “Since this is a complicated IT question, it cannot be described that easily. In simple words: The wrong box was ticked.” However, this mistake has never occurred in the administration before, she adds. After all, the renewed sending of wage statements at the end of January cost about 6,000 Swiss francs.

The correction that led to the need for a correction remains puzzling, Mrs Wiedemann stated: “In some cases, the IT system carried out an inexplicable correction of pension provisions. This led to a wrong net salary.” The miscalculation has been corrected and everything is in order now, it is stated. Those who hope that tax bills cannot be sent out due to these IT problems are however wrong. According to Mrs Wiedemann, the mistake has been “analysed and eliminated”.

Cause of death in Muttenz prison identified

A forensic investigation into the death of a man in custody in Muttenz has revealed that he died from a morphine overdose.

The remand prisoner was found dead in his bed on Saturday, 21 January and the prosecution of Baselland launched an immediate investigation into the cause of his death. An autopsy of the man’s body was carried out as well as toxicology examinations by the Institute of Forensics at the University of Basel. The forensic investigations have revealed that the 27-year-old Romanian national died of a morphine overdose.

Due to these revelations, the prosecution of Basel-Landschaft has opened a criminal investigation against unidentified people and is conducting further investigations. Additional information is not available.

No causal relation between two cases of death

A link to a suicide on 4 February at the same facility has been ruled out.

More people leave churches in Basel-Stadt

The number of people leaving the church has risen in several cantons, but to different degrees. Citizens of Basel-Stadt currently resign from the large national churches more than in any other canton in Switzerland.

The exit rates of Catholics from the church has increased rapidly in the cantons of Basel-Stadt, Schaffhausen, and Appenzell Ausserrhoden. Within the Protestant church, the cantons of Basel-Stadt, Aargau, Lucerne, and Obwalden display a large number of people leaving.

The Swiss Pastoral-Sociological Institute (SPI) advises however that these figures should be taken with a pinch of salt, and a spokesperson said the exit rates fluctuate from year to year. Generally speaking, Protestants leave their churches more often than Catholics. Only few cantons offer long-term numbers.

In Basel-Stadt, where the most people have left the large national churches, about 31 of 1,000 church members (Catholics and Protestants each) resigned last year. In 2011/2012, only 20,5 of 1,000 Catholics and 25,6 of 1,000 Protestants had left their churches.