The Brotzu pay adjustment is a major mess: funds for salary adjustments for professionals working at Sardinia's largest hospital have been frozen. The issue is said to be rooted not only in a dispute between unions, but also in doubts—reportedly raised by the Board of Auditors—about the legitimacy of the payments. And amidst a thousand doubts, the payments have been frozen.
It seemed like everything was done to standardize wages in Sardinia's healthcare system: the commissioner had already drawn up a timetable. The 2023 payment was supposed to arrive in August, and the 2024 payment in September. But nothing happened. "Some unions," explains Cimo secretary Luigi Mascia, "requested a 'head-to-head' distribution of funds, which is less meritocratic because it's the same for everyone, compared to what we've always believed, and we support the implementation of performance-based regulations. According to the approach of some unions, even if someone is new to the organization and another has been with it for thirty years, the payment should be the same for everyone, and we completely disagree with this. The gap, moreover, between, for example, a facility manager and a new employee, is very small. It's a matter of principle," Mascia clarifies. "Our union has 164 members. And, without fear of contradiction, it brings together the best professionals. In our regulations, one of the items that impacts performance concerns attendance at work. There's a risk that everything could fall through because, Mascia continues, "the Board of Auditors could become rigid on this issue: all state laws have sought to reward performance to promote the productivity of the public administration. Not differentiating positions goes against this approach. Then there's another law regarding corporate spending caps: if the Board were to become rigid on this rule, the equalization funds would become Monopoly funds."
And this is precisely the crux of the matter: the auditors are said to have doubts about the methods of disbursing the additional emoluments—which would cause spending caps to be exceeded—and there's a risk that, when called upon to decide, they might permanently block the equalization funds.
