Renovation Work and Other Updates in Steffisburg – June 2023

As the community reports, due to the lack of sun protection, the east-facing rooms of the old community center at Oberdorfstrasse 30 can only be used poorly by tenants from spring to autumn because the room temperatures are too high. In addition, the interior doors are outdated and ring-proof and no longer meet the current demands and needs of office use and therefore have to be repaired for acoustic reasons. For the execution of this urgently needed work, the municipal council has approved an additional credit of 40,000 francs on its own authority.

At the meeting on June 16, a loan of CHF 205,000 was presented to the municipal council for the renovation of the façade, the expansion of lightning protection and the guarantee of safety equipment for roof work (safety hooks) for the same municipal property. “The two projects can be implemented independently of each other, which is why the two loans can be approved separately by the relevant financially competent bodies of the municipality,” the municipality explains the procedure.

Other communities are involved in school social work

By means of an affiliation contract, the communities have the opportunity to purchase services from the Steffisburg community. In the social affairs department, this is currently possible, for example, with economic social assistance, child and adult protection or alimony. Individual communities have also joined the open children and youth work. Now the offer of school social work is added.

The communities of Buchholterberg, Eriz, Fahrni, Oberlangenegg, Unterlangenegg, Wacheldorn and the Unterlangenegg community association have decided to introduce school social work. The school social work of the above-mentioned communities or the community association will be taken over by the department of social affairs in the future. The necessary additional agreements were approved by all contractual partners.

The budget for school social work in the municipality of Steffisburg will be increased by 40 percent to fulfill regional tasks. The municipal council has approved the necessary supplementary credits of CHF 19,000 to be debited from the income statement for regional tasks. These expenses are covered by income from the settlement of hourly expenses to the affiliated communities.

Change in staff

With a workload of 90 percent, Reto Oesch will complement the maintenance group of the depot team as a craftsman from July 1st. In the social affairs department, Patrik Kämpf will be working 60 percent as a school social worker for the schools in Steffisburg and the right Zulgtal from August 1, and Jana Röthlisberger will support the administration of the Zulg social service as a clerk with a degree of employment of 80 percent. The IT team will be expanded with Lukas Herren from September 1st. He is employed as a system technology computer scientist with a full-time employment rate of 100 percent.

On June 30, we say goodbye to two employees, Daniel Allenbach, forester, and Heidi von Gunten, cleaning employee and cafeteria employee, from the service of the municipality. They will both retire after many years of service to the community.

Introduction of e-recruitment solution

Recruiting new employees for the municipality from the job advertisement to the employment is complex and takes a lot of time. For this reason, an e-recruitment solution is being introduced, which significantly reduces the administrative effort. This digitization enables multi-posting (simultaneous activation on several job platforms including your own career page – vacancies) as well as administrative simplification in application management. The municipal council has approved an additional loan of CHF 3,400 and a recurring commitment loan of CHF 2,900 for this purpose.