Peter Bohlmann

Peter Bohlmann, District Administrator of the Verden District (2018)

Peter Bohlmann (born April 19, 1972 in Coesfeld ) is a local SPD politician in Lower Saxony . He's since 1 October 2005, the first full-time district administrator of the district of Verden . At the same time, he was the youngest district administrator in Germany at the time of his election.

Professional biography

Peter Bohlmann initially completed an apprenticeship as a central heating and ventilation engineer, after which he completed a degree in economics in Hamburg. He then studied economics at the University of Bremen before taking up a job as a management consultant in Bremen.

Political biography

Bohlmann joined the SPD in 1988 and was elected to the district council of the Verden district for the first time in 1996. In 1999 he became chairman of the SPD district parliamentary group and spokesman for the red-green majority group.

On April 24, 2005 he won direct election by the population as the first full-time district administrator. After the abolition of the so-called dual leadership in Lower Saxony, this office is both the head of the administration and the highest representative of the district. In 2011 he was re-elected for a further eight years. His term of office included, among other things, a clear debt reduction in the Verden district and extensive restructuring of the district's own operations, such as the Aller-Weser Clinic (AWK), the district building company (KBG) and the Verden-Walsroder railway (VWE). In his function as district administrator, he is either chairman of the supervisory board (AWK, KBG) or the shareholders' meeting (VWE).

In the health, transport and housing sectors, Bohlmann advocates strong public services through economically healthy businesses, mostly publicly owned. A goal that, with the exception of the Aller-Weser Clinic, has been achieved for all other companies in the Verden district.

In terms of technical policy, a major focus of his work is social and labor market policy, where he calls on the federal government to significantly strengthen the municipalities in social work and active employment promotion. Due to the restriction of decentralized design options, unclear structures and dual responsibilities, Bohlmann is an emphatic critic of the Social Security Code II, known as HARTZ 4. A basic article he published in 2015 on the ten-year existence of the law is entitled "Bureaucratic driver with a moderate balance sheet". In his remarks, he denied the law's positive effects on labor market policy and advocated a functioning second labor market. In order to increase efficiency and to increase the clarity for the citizens as well, he advocates that tax-financed welfare benefits are technically the responsibility of the municipalities and that contribution-financed insurance benefits are taken care of by the social security funds.

Also in 2016 at an integration conference of the state of Lower Saxony, he criticized organizational inefficiencies in the state's responsibilities and called for a "pilot and coordination function" for the districts and independent cities in the integration of refugees. Bohlmann is the spokesman for the 16 option municipalities in Lower Saxony.

Web links

• Personal page

predecessor	Office	successor
Hans-Jürgen Wächter (SPD)	District Administrator of the Verden district since 2005