On October 1, 1927, a new nationwide set of compensation laws went into effect, and accordingly the Leipzig bureaucracy had to realign the Thomaskantor's financial package negotiated in 1922. City Hall argued for the retention of its earlier commitments within the new framework. The matter took on added urgency, since Berlin's latest overture to draw Straube away still hung in the air. When the Saxon Ministry of Public Instruction outlined to the Leipzig City Council its translation of the older arrangement into the new one—that the cantor's pay be classified in the new Group 7b, a supplementary allowance elevating it to the status of 7a—City Hall countered that it considered his position in Group 7a, and that the supplement would place it on par with the rector in pay grade Group 6, “which surely corresponds to the importance and special nature of this position.”

That latter comment was but the tip of the iceberg, intimating much about the authoritative position Straube had constructed for himself a decade into his tenure. The hairsplitting between city and state soon prompted a painstaking argument from City Hall to validate its stance. Above and beyond the pedantic details, the real point was “that making such an exception of the position and its present occupant is readily justified, given the special nature of the former and the outstanding accomplishments of the latter. It is unlikely that consequences will arise from this, since to our knowledge there is in all Saxony no position to be rated equally and no cantor on par with Professor Dr. Straube.” The city had worked long and hard to cobble together a unique contract for this singular musician. “To avert the danger that the Bach city of Leipzig yet might lose him, we consider the arrangement we envision as essential.” Straube had restyled the cantorate into an exceptional cultural position tied first of all to the Bach legacy. The “consequences” cited here were presumably those pointed out also in the 1922 negotiations, namely resentment among civil servants (other Latin school cantors among them) that could arise from irregularities in what was supposed to be a democratic structure. No matter. City officials were well exercised in such arguments by now, convinced that Straube's retention depended largely on financial parity between cantor and rector.