The Roman alliance is pretty late.

"The last year of U3 care will be free from August 1, 2022," it says on page 131 of his coalition agreement.

In the meantime, this date has passed almost half a year ago, but the parents continue to pay for the last year of childcare for their offspring in the crèche.

If you have your child looked after in a crèche, you pay 198 euros per month, plus the costs for meals.

That makes around 3000 euros a year.

But why does the coalition write such a promise, even with a fixed date, in the coalition agreement if it is not kept, or at least not kept on time?

A heated argument broke out between the SPD and the Greens.

The education department head Sylvia Weber (SPD) claims that she has the money to finance this measure.

There is talk of almost 14 million euros a year, which Weber wants to finance by reallocating the available funds.

But the submission by the Head of Education has not yet been decided by the magistrate.

Weber is therefore "really angry", as she recently said, because the porters and the parents were waiting for it.

"It is important that the families are relieved."

In the meantime, the dispute has also been carried out in the election campaign.

Kolja Müller, deputy SPD chairman, accuses the Greens and their treasurer Bastian Bergerhoff of blocking the project: "It is incomprehensible that the responsible treasurer does not comply with the contract and that the coalition discredits the laboriously negotiated coalition agreement in such a way." And Mike Josef, the SPD candidate for the mayoral election, has also made the demand his own: “I expect that the coalition agreement will be adhered to.

Parents have been waiting for this since August.

It has to come now.”

Let air out of the household

The Greens refer to budgetary discipline: the SPD is still adhering to the "Feldmann logic" of "providing everything for free for everyone," says education policy spokeswoman Julia Frank.

"It's not enough to negotiate issues in the coalition agreement, you also have to set the course." In October, however, Frank claimed that her party had anchored the issue in the coalition agreement because Weber had forgotten this.

Now she says: "We don't have a budget that Sylvia Weber can use freely, but have to show all the expenses in the city budget." Weber has not yet explained what contribution she will make to consolidating the budget.

The heads of department were asked last year to save money.

Because registered funds are often not invested,

However, Frank also has doubts about the sense of the project: A free day-care center year only benefits families who already have a place.

However, many families still looked after their children at home because there was a lack of places: "Here, Mrs. Weber urgently needs to start creating new childcare places, because the amounts earmarked for this have not been fully invested for years." The mayoral candidate of the Greens, Manuela Rottmann, also doubts that only the amount of parental contributions is decisive: "The quality of childcare is just as important." It must be possible to recruit sufficient staff so that the childcare ratio is not further reduced.

For this purpose, SPD candidate Josef had brought up a Frankfurt surcharge for educators.