Sedgwick County adds Juneteenth, removes Presidents’ Day as paid holiday for employees
Juneteenth will be a paid holiday for Sedgwick County employees in 2023, but another paid day off is being removed from the calendar.
The county commission voted Wednesday to replace Presidents’ Day with the June 19 holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States.
Juneteenth marks the day — June 19, 1865 — that Gen. Gordon Granger led Union soldiers to Galveston, Texas, to demand that the community comply with President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863.
President Joe Biden signed legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021.
“White people must deeply consider the wound of racism on the hearts, minds and souls of every Black American,” Chad Childs of Wichita wrote in an email read aloud by Commissioner Lacey Cruse at the meeting.
“It is already popular and common to celebrate veterans, as it should be. Black people in our country have also given and sacrificed much. The freedom of Black Americans needs to be properly lifted up and celebrated on Juneteenth as a local holiday.”
Larry Burks, president of the local NAACP branch, urged commissioners to add Juneteenth to the holiday calendar without removing another date.
“Instead of having 10, we recommend that you would allow this to be an eleventh paid holiday supported by the county,” Burks said. “That’s our position as the NAACP, and we would like you all to take very strong consideration of that recommendation.”
Adding an eleventh paid holiday would cost the county an additional $828,539, chief human resources officer Sheena Schmutz said.
“I am fiscally conservative and I am not going to add an almost $1 million expense to the county,” Chair David Dennis said.
In a survey that nearly half of the county’s workforce responded to, 83% of employees said they wanted to see Juneteenth recognized as a paid holiday. In a second question, 57.7% said Juneteenth should not replace an existing paid holiday, while 18.7% supported substituting it for Presidents’ Day and 11.8% supported replacing Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Commissioner Jim Howell said that as an alternative to adding an eleventh holiday, the county could consider offering employees a “floater” holiday to be taken off on a date of their choosing during the year. County staff had not calculated the financial impact of a floater holiday.
Howell ultimately made a substitute motion to replace Presidents’ Day on the holiday calendar after Cruse’s initial motion to add Juneteenth as an eleventh paid day off.
Sedgwick County employees will have the following paid holidays off in 2023:
New Year’s Day (Jan. 1)
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (Jan. 16)
Memorial Day (May 29)
Juneteenth (June 19)
Independence Day (July 4)
Labor Day (Sept. 4)
Veterans Day (Nov. 10)
Thanksgiving (Nov. 23)
Friday after Thanksgiving (Nov. 24)
Christmas Day (Dec. 25)
