Calculation of operating grants to private kindergarten
Supreme Court judgment 18 Januar 2021, HR-2021-62-A, (case no. 20-136828SIV-HRET), civil case, appeal against judgment.
Slangsvold kindergarten, and others (Counsel Morten Steenstrup), Private Barnehagers Landsforbund (third-party intervener) (Counsel Einar Brunes) v. Fredrikstad municipality (Counsel Alex Borch)
Justices: Skoghøy, Noer, Kallerud, Ringnes, Thyness
According to section 14 of the Kindergarten Act, as the provision read in 2014 and 2015, approved non-municipal kindergartens were to be treated equally with municipal kindergartens as regards public grants. When stipulating the grants to private kindergartens for these two years, a municipality had excluded the salary costs to special divisions of the municipal kindergartens from the calculation base, but included the children in these divisions. The grants per full-time place were thus lower than the municipality's average operating costs in its own kindergartens. This was incompatible with the equal treatment principle in section 14 of the Kindergarten Act. The municipality's decisions on operating grants were declared invalid.