The notices of 15 June 2023 in the amount of €13,885,824 (Barleben) and €2,756,377 (Niedere Börde) are lawful. The district of Börde was authorised to base the district levy notices on the adopted supplementary budget bylaws, as this was the only way to take account of the expected increases in expenditure.
In the opinion of the court, the procedure carried out by the district to determine the district levy rate for the 2023 financial year fulfils the legal requirements. The data requested from the municipalities - including income, expenditure, tax revenue, level of liabilities and reserves, obligation to draw up a budget consolidation concept, per capita debt - was sufficient and suitable to form a reliable picture of the financial situation of each individual municipality. The financial data that the municipalities sent to the district in October 2022 was still sufficiently up-to-date at the time of the resolution by the district council at the beginning of 2023. This is because the plaintiffs did not assert any significant changes in the municipalities' budgetary situation. Such changes were also not obvious. The data determined in this way was available to the district council when it passed its resolution. A summarised assessment of the municipalities' financial data was attached to the draft resolution.
In the opinion of the court, the district treated its financial interests and those of the municipalities equally. The assessment was not one-sided and inconsiderate.
The points system used by the district to determine the ability to pay was not objectionable. According to this system, the district assessed the ability to pay of the average municipality - which is what matters according to case law - as limited, while it even considered its own ability to pay to be jeopardised. When assessing the financial situation of the municipalities, the district was obliged - due to the obligation to keep the data up to date - to refer to the financial statements for the financial years for which they were already available and not to the budgeted figures. The district was also not obliged to use existing reserves to balance the budget. This is because this is a discretionary right of the administrative district, which only becomes an obligation in exceptional cases. However, there was no such exception here.
With the required cross-sectional view of the municipal level, the court also did not criticise the fact that the district offset surpluses of individual municipalities against deficits of other municipalities.
Finally, the district was under no obligation to carry out a special balancing exercise, even though more than half of the municipalities were unable to balance their budgets. This is because the district's budget, which was ultimately adopted, also shows a deficit that is roughly the same as that of the municipalities. According to the court, the 41.2% district levy rate calculated in this way and adopted by the district council was the result of a proper balancing of interests. In the opinion of the court, there were no indications of a violation of the tax sovereignty of the plaintiffs. Nor were there any indications of structural underfunding of a municipality on the part of the district.
As a result, the administrative court deemed the district's levies to be lawful and dismissed the claims.