City Audit Office Vienna

The City Audit Office of Vienna , which was the control office of the City of Vienna until December 31, 2013 , is an independent institution of the City of Vienna's City Administration . Its task is to control the economic management of the city and the state of Vienna. As the only city audit office (or control office) in Austria , the institution is also responsible for security checks in the magistrate's facilities. The new name of the control body and significantly expanded control rights were resolved in the amendment to the City Audit Office, which the Vienna State Parliament passed on November 21, 2013.

history

precursor

The beginnings of municipal auditing since March 12, 1526 can be documented. It was laid down in the city ordinance that Ferdinand I issued in Augsburg . Since about 1549 the city has had its own "bookkeeping", which from 1581 also acted as an auditing body for other city organs. Already in the "bookkeeping instructions" from 1657 it was pointed out that not only the correctness of the accounting should be checked, but also suggestions for improvement should be submitted.

This bookkeeping was only independent of the other offices of the City of Vienna. It was monitored by the respective mayor and the city council. The institution was repeatedly subordinated to various offices of the monarch's court in his capacity as Archduke of Austria : in 1779 it was subordinated to the foundation court bookkeeping, 1780 to the kk accountancy chamber , in 1782 first to the court arithmetic chamber and then to the kk municipal and foundation court bookkeeping. Further ever changing subordination under the offices of the sovereign followed.

With an imperial patent dated March 17, 1849, Franz Joseph I issued a provisional municipal law for all countries of the monarchy, except for the Hungarian ones; the community committees were empowered to monitor the conduct by commissions . It was later determined that the bookkeeping should be a direct auxiliary body of the municipal council in the exercise of its right of control and an auxiliary body of the magistrate in the administrative accounting business.

1920–2013: Control Office of the City of Vienna

In the budget debate in the Vienna City Council on June 26, 1919, Deputy Mayor Georg Emmerling mentioned, among other things, the need to set up a control office that is separate from the city's bookkeeping. The control office of the City of Vienna as it is today was founded in 1920 as part of a comprehensive reform of the Viennese municipal code carried out in the spring by the Lower Austrian Landtag (Viennese MPs held 68 of the 120 seats).

In Art. I, the control office was named separately from the magistrate for the bodies appointed to administer community affairs; it was defined in the new § 41a of the municipal statute. The control office had to report directly to the mayor and the municipal council . The first rules of procedure for the new control office were passed on June 30, 1920 by the municipal council. In the course of the reform, at the request of Mayor Jakob Reumann , the first social democratic mayor of Vienna, and others, the city senate and executive city councilors were introduced.

On October 1, 1920, Vienna was elevated to a separate federal state by the Federal Constitutional Act agreed between the Conservatives and Social Democrats with effect from November 10, 1920. Most of the provisions of the reform of spring 1920 were incorporated into the Vienna City Constitution passed by the new Vienna State Parliament on November 10, 1920 and entered into force on November 18, 1920: So also, in Section 76 of the Vienna City Constitution, the provision that regardless of Magistrate the control office exists. In the current version of the Vienna City Constitution, independence from the magistrate is no longer explicitly included; the control office defined in Section 73, on the other hand, is run as a largely independent part of the magistrate.

Even after the establishment of the Austro-Fascist “corporate state”, little was changed in the tasks and organization of the control office . Even after the introduction of the German Municipal Code by the Ostmark Act of April 14, 1939 after Austria was " annexed " to the German Reich, the Control Office - now directly subordinate to the Auditing Office and the Reich Governor - remained largely unchanged.

On May 17, 1945, a resolution by the provisional mayor of Vienna, Theodor Körner , resulted in the renaming in the control office and the renewed direct subordination to the mayor. The Constitution of the City of Vienna in the version of 1931 was restored by the Vienna Constitutional Transition Act of July 10, 1945; with this, all regulations on the control office were put back into force.

The reason for the last organizational change in the control office was the collapse of the Vienna Reichsbrücke in 1976. Due to this event, the previous technical controls by the control office were anchored in the city constitution in 1977 in order to emphasize their importance.

Since 2014: Vienna City Audit Office

The conversion from the control office to the city audit office was decided by the Vienna state parliament at the request of the red-green coalition formed in 2010 in November 2013 and announced in December 2013. The so-called city audit office amendment brought about the extensive revision of the provisions of the city constitution on the accounting control system of the city and state of Vienna.

In the new § 73b of the city constitution, management control has been extended to facilities in which the city does not hold more than 50% of the shares - provided that the city has reserved control rights for its participation. The security check to be carried out by the city audit office (§ 73c StV) has been redefined. At the request of at least 13 members of the municipal council , the city audit office must now carry out special acts of management and security control (Section 73e (1) of the StV). If an audited department fails to provide an opinion on the audit report within nine months, it must be re-audited by the city audit office (Section 73f (2) of the StV). If reports from the City Audit Office are to be discussed in the City Audit Office Committee of the Municipal Council, they must be published on the Internet at the same time (Section 73f Paragraph 4 StV).

organization

In addition to the office and the department for central agendas, the city audit office director is responsible for the management control group with departments I to IV and the security control group with department V (“ Structural Engineering Department ” and the “ Public Procurement and Contract Law Department ”) and Department VI.

The staff of the city audit office, which took over the staff of the control office at the end of 2013, is around 90 people. The annual auditing volume in 2014 amounted to around 19 billion euros in the area of the City of Vienna's magistrate, the companies and corporate holdings of the city and Wiener Stadtwerke .

The security control includes the examination of the enforcement of the official tasks related to the safety of life or health of people (with the exception of the decisions of the competent collegiate bodies that are relevant for the security) as well as the examination of whether those of the organs facilities and systems administered by the community that may pose a threat to the safety of life or health of people, adequate, appropriate and proper safety measures have been taken.

Directors since 1945

Control Office Directors:

Franz Leppa (1945–1955)
Ernst Lachs (1955–1970)
Fritz Delabro (1970–1983; previously head of the official inspection of the municipal administration)
Peter Satrapa (1983-2000)
Alois List (2000-2006)
Erich Hechtner (2006-2010); then Magistrate Director
Peter Pollak (2010-2013)

City Court of Auditors:

Peter Pollak (2014–), previously Director of the Control Office; In 2015 reappointed by the municipal council for another five years

The 2013 amendment to the City Audit Office stipulated (Art. III, Paragraph 3) that the currently appointed Director of the Audit Office shall be considered the City Audit Office Director for the remainder of his term of office. For the appointment of his successors, the law stipulates in the amended section 73 (3) of the City Constitution (StV) that it must now be carried out on the basis of a public tender, whereby the three best-suited candidates in the tendering process submit to a non-public hearing in the city audit committee in the presence of the Mayor have to undergo. According to Section 73, Paragraph 4 of the StV, the City Audit Office's director can now only be dismissed by a two-thirds majority.