Font ResizeLAS CRUCES - While many of us poor worker bees have to grind it out in the salt mines on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Columbus Day and President's Day, bankers and public servants - except for hard working emergency responders - get to happily skip around town, having picnics and whatnot (or even catching up on laundry). The question is: Why?
OK, there are some good reasons.
Banks, for instance, are not actually required to take federal holidays off, as far as I can tell. I never got an answer from the folks at the Federal Reserve in Dallas as I was passed around to several different departments and was on hold for quite some time before I finally gave up. But Grant Buck at Citizen's Bank reports that banks are not mandated to close on federal holidays, but since the Fed itself is closed, it's kind of impractical to be open because there would be no money flow.
That makes sense.
For most government employees - local and state and federal - it seems these holidays are not a requirement so much as a tradition. Sure, I doubt very few people begrudge public employees getting July 4, Christmas and Thanksgiving off. Memorial Day is good, too, so people can attend parades and services.
Is there any real practical reason, though, that we should not get mail, or be able to swing by the county office building today - on Martin Luther King Jr. Day - or Columbus Day or President's Day? People might argue it is disrespectful to the people who are honored by those days to
City Manager Robert Garza told me that the city council passes a resolution each year as to which days will be deemed holidays and they usually parallel federal holidays. As far as he knows, there is no state law that requires municipalities to take certain days off.
As for educators, before I mention anything else, I must settle a domestic issue in advance. To my dear wife Terri: I love you very much and I hope you remember all the diapers I've changed and dishes I've washed and lunches I've brought to you at the school where you teach and work really, really hard.
Now, I must ask: Why in the world is there no school today? Martin Luther King Jr. is a very important person in our history, so couldn't the students be in class, learning about him, instead of at home playing the Wii?
My lovely, hard-working, extremely intelligent wife points out to me that the students do learn about King, and in her class, and many others, civil rights pioneers were discussed last week. Mike Cook, LCPS spokesman, said that the state mandates how many days of school must take place each school year, but as far as he knows, there is no state law that requires schools to take off certain days.
Again, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day and Veterans Day, those are understandable. But take Columbus Day, for example. Schools used to get that day off, but now they do not. Couldn't MLK Jr. Day and Presidents' Day be in-school days that are devoted to the history of these individuals who are being honored?
I know, I know, there is the issue of lesson plans and losing a day of prep for standardized testing, but still, maybe this is an issue worth exploring.
I must admit, though, if I worked in a job that gave me all these holidays off, I'd take all of them and never look back!
Brook Stockberger can be reached at (575) 541-5457
Days Off
Most public employees, and banks, have the same holidays off each year. There are a few variances, for example, Las Cruces Public Schools have off spring break off, but not Columbus Day, and Do a Ana County employees have a Spring Holiday Day on Good Friday - April 24 - but otherwise most have a similar schedule. Here is a list of the federal and state holidays for 2011:
•Today - Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
•Feb. 21 - Presidents' Day.
•May 30 - Memorial Day.
•July 4 - Independence Day.
•Sept. 5 - Labor Day.
•Oct. 10 - Columbus Day.
•Nov. 11 - Veterans Day.
•Nov. 24 - Thanksgiving Day.
•Dec. 26 - Day off for Christmas.
•Jan. 2 - New Year's Day.
