The Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regional chamber of accounts audited the accounts and management of the municipality of Saint-Etienne, for the years 2012 to 2017. A report made public at the municipal council on 15 July.
“The financial situation of the city of Saint-Etienne deteriorated in 2016 and 2017, before improving in 2018, the city being historically in debt,” said the regional chamber. And to continue: “The wage bill increased by 6% over the period, the margins generated by the reduction in the workforce of 74 full-time equivalent jobs having been absorbed in part by the policy of promotion of step and grade of agents. ”
Furthermore, “despite active debt management, which has made it possible to reduce the outstanding debt and the share of structured loans, the residual weight of the last structured loan continues to expose the community to latent and significant financial risk “.
In various areas, management in Saint-Etienne can be improved. In particular, in matters of human resources, “the community has disregarded the obligations of legal publicity of vacancies, prior to recruitments. The compensation system in place suffers from numerous irregularities, that the implementation of the compensation system taking into account functions, subjugations, experience and professional commitment (RIFSEEP) could have made it possible to absorb, if the community had carried out it without delay “. While recognizing “an ambitious and effective policy has been in place for over ten years, in order to offer a quality catering service in all schools and municipal nurseries” […] only a quarter of the pupils attend school canteens in the city (compared to one in two in primary school in France, according to a recent study by the National Council for the evaluation of the school system), and the administrative restaurant does not accommodate more than 3.5 % of municipal officials “.
The regional audit office recommends 7 measures:
Recommendation 1: Continue to pool services with intermunicipal co-operation, in particular for support functions.
Recommendation n ° 2: Regularly adapt the strategy concerning the last structured loan.
Recommendation n ° 3: Regularize the staff compensation plan in the context of the implementation of the RIFSEEP.
Recommendation n ° 4: Respect the legal duration of working time and the regulation of overtime.
Recommendation n ° 5: End the early retirement leave.
Recommendation n ° 6: Establish a plan to fight against waste, collect and sort waste for all collective catering.
Recommendation n ° 7: Analyze the causes of the low attendance of school canteens to allow to draw the consequences on the evolution of the service
Read the full report (95 pages)