Should Juneteenth be an annual paid holiday for York County? It could happen soon
York County employees soon could have two new paid holidays.
York County Council voted Monday night to add Juneteenth and Veterans Day to its list of paid holidays for employees. The initial vote will be followed by two more, plus a committee review, before it’s finalized. York County has more than 1,100 employees.
The time off would mean county services would close — as they do now for recognized holidays like Christmas, New Year’s, Martin Luther King Day and others — on two more dates during the year.
Juneteenth is recognized on June 19, but with that date falling on Sunday this year the day off work was Monday for many companies.
“Since the federal government made Juneteenth a national and federal holiday last year, I just felt it was necessary to honor that holiday locally,” said Councilman William “Bump” Roddey. “I know we have several other holidays that we don’t recognize but I think this one deserves recognition.”
The county honors nine paid holidays and three optional or personal holidays employees can take each year. Initially, Roddey said, the idea of adding Juneteenth came up as another option for a personal or floating holiday. Then came the idea of adding Veterans Day.
“The question now is, are we going to close the county down and make this a closed holiday for employees or are we going to make it two floating holidays?” Roddey said.
Councilman Robert Winkler, who proposed the addition of Veterans Day, said since both are federal holidays the county should close.
“In my opinion a floating holiday is just another day off,” Winkler said.
One of the current floating holidays was perhaps instituted, Winkler said, for Veterans Day. But he isn’t sure.
“We don’t know if we’re honoring Veterans Day when we take it off or not,” Winkler said. “So if we want to honor these days, I think we need to honor them and close for those days.”
Councilwoman Allison Love said there is value with the floating holiday because it keeps county services open, since not all employees would take it at the same time and, in her experience, business employees prefer the flexibility. But Love said she would defer to county management on what county employees want.
“I don’t believe we should ever shut down if we don’t have to, but I think people prefer — I know all my employees would prefer — to have any day,” Love said. “Because they can take a day where maybe they’re celebrating that in some other way.”
County manager David Hudspeth said county employees haven’t been polled, but flexibility in scheduling from a floating holiday might be attractive.
“However I have not had any discussions with them,” Hudspeth said. “They may choose to honor Veterans by being off that day or honor the holiday of Juneteenth by being off that day.”
On Monday night, the majority of council appeared poised to go with the closed/days off.
“If we’re going to celebrate the day, I think it should be on the day,” said Councilman Brandon Guffey. “I don’t think it should be floating. The purpose of the holiday is not just another day off. It’s to recognize the day, so I think it should be closed.”
Councilman Tom Audette doesn’t want the holidays to get lost in time off scheduling.
“It does get lost when you’re not actually celebrating on the day of what it is,” he said.
Councilman Joel Hamilton agreed.
“The point of it is to recognize veterans and to recognize the Juneteenth holiday, not necessarily just make county employees happy,” he said. “It’s to recognize the importance of those days, and a floating holiday fails to recognize the importance of those individual days.”
Last year, the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act made Juneteenth a federal holiday. It’s celebrated on June 19 in remembrance of the date in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Tx., learned they were free and were recognized as U.S. citizens. It celebrates an end to slavery in the United States.
Veterans Day has a long history that began as Armistice Day, which in 1938 became a federal holiday on Nov. 11 in recognition of the end of World War I. The holiday changed dates and names since, but now is recognized as Veterans Day on the original Nov. 11 date.
