Public expenditure, Sandefjord | Former councilor (61) costs the municipality more than a million in pension each year

Former Sandefjord municipality councilor Gisle Dahn (61) was known before the municipal merger with Stokke and Andebu as the highest paid councilor in Norway, with an annual salary of NOK 1.62 million.

Dahn was not elected senior director of the new municipality during the merger, which took effect on January 1, 2017.

Instead, Dahn, who was then 57 years old, received a pension worth almost 1.1 million crowns, which he receives every year for life.

– Gisle Dahn was well liked by municipal politicians because he was good with money. It was very stingy on the part of the municipality. But it is completely wrong to have to give such pensions to a 50-year-old man, says Ernst Midtun, who worked for 18 years in Sandefjord municipality.

Midtun, now retired, worked in his time as a business coordinator in the counselor’s office. When he learned of the pension agreement from the councilor, he could do nothing but report the matter to the Sandefjord municipality control committee.

– I believe that it is completely behind the objective that the municipality concludes such agreements. It still bothers me, says Midtun.

See responses to former councilor Gisle Dahn below on the case!

The online newspaper Økonomi has requested access to all labor agreements and final agreements for the councilors of the municipalities that have carried out municipal mergers in recent years.

Do you have tips on how to spend money in municipal Norway? Tip to Nettavisen reporter here.

Also read: The councilor became a case officer in the new municipality: Withheld millions of salary

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New super salary – retain pension

However, the former councilor was not done with working life when Andebu, Stokke and Sandefjord merged. Dahn continued to work as a special advisor in Sandefjord Township with the councilor’s salary of NOK 1.62 million for the next ten months.

In addition, the former councilor worked part-time as a consultant in the municipality with NOK 1.57 million salary for seven months, before leaving the municipality after 20 years of service in May 2018.

Dahn, who still receives NOK 1.07 million in full pension every year from Sandefjord municipality, now works as Managing Director of Sparebank 1 Stiftelsen BV. The foundation is the largest owner of Sparebank 1 BV.

According to the annual accounts of Sparebank 1 Stiftelsen BV, Dahn received a total of NOK 989,400 for the work he did in 2019 as the general manager and sole employee of the foundation. As Managing Director of Stiftelsen BV, he is also a member of the board of Sparebank 1 BV, which gives him an additional NOK 119,000 in fees.

This gave Dahn an income of two million crowns in 2019.

In an email to Nettavisen Økonomi, Gisle Dahn writes that the municipal reform was the reason why the disability pension was included in her employment contract. The purpose was to facilitate negotiations with neighboring municipalities, Dahn writes.

– The provision meant that in the event of a municipal merger, a new councilor could be hired without my having a preferential right to the position. The agreement was implemented as planned. I resigned as a councilor at the end of 2016/2017 and now I receive the early retirement agreement, says Dahn, who will not comment on Ernst Midtun’s allegations.

He received criticism from politicians

The Sandefjord municipality human resources manager confirms to Nettavisen Økonomi that Dahn still receives NOK 1.07 million each year from the municipality as a pension.

Following the conclusion of the agreement, the mayor of Sandefjord, Bjørn Ole Gleditsch (H), and the rest of the remuneration and employment committee were criticized for the agreement that the municipality made with Dahn: the control committee of the municipality believed that the politicians of Sandefjord should have been informed that the deal had no shortening or adjustment.

– The salary committee did not do anything illegal, because they had been given a mandate to do so. But they did not inform city politicians about the amount of the pension, something they obviously should have done, says former city employee Midtun.

Mayor Gleditsch tells Nettavisen Økonomi that he does not remember in detail the agreement with former councilor Dahn.

– The agreement was signed many years ago and, as I recall, was based on the fact that he was not allowed to continue as a councilor after the merger. We now have the main focus on dealing with the crown situation, Gleditsch writes in an email to Nettavisen.

When Sandefjord Blad confronted the mayor that Dahn, then 57, could find a new job in the private business sector without his township pension payment being reduced, Gleditsch responded as follows:

– In hindsight, there are certainly things that could have been different, said the mayor in 2016.

– Do something about wanting to pay taxes.

It was when the former councilor changed his employment relationship from a fixed-term position to a permanent position in 2014 that the possibility of early retirement was opened for the first time:

• Dahn received an annual salary of NOK 1.5 million and was able to retire with a full old-age pension (66 per cent of annual salary) if the Sandefjord municipality was merged with another municipality.
• The 2014 deal was updated in August 2016: the salary went up to NOK 1,622,250, so Dahn was able to collect a pension of NOK 1,070,685.
• A new agreement from November 2016, in which the municipality and Dahn agreed that the former councilor should be transferred to an adviser position in the new municipality as of January 1, 2017, states that Dahn is entitled to a full pension when terminate employment – for any reason.
• After working as a full-time advisor from January 2017 to September 2017, the municipality and Dahn agree on a change: the former councilor would receive the previously agreed pension of almost NOK 1.1 million from October 1 of the same year and I would work in a 50 percent position as a consultant. For this he would be compensated with 500,000 crowns. The total salary was then NOK 1.57 million.

Karine Ugland Virik, an economist and director of the Taxpayers Association, believes the case provokes:

– As this case is presented, you join the ranks of public employees in leadership positions who for various reasons leave the public sector and receive early retirements or pensions that cause and are contrary to what people believe is fair and reasonable . Everyone responsible for other people’s money should think twice before spending money, Virik says.

She believes that municipalities and public actors need to be more aware of how community funds are managed.

– It comes with great responsibility when the authorities and public employees go to use our common funds, and there is little doubt that these cases do something with the desire to pay taxes. It’s basically about respecting taxpayer funds, Virik says.