Pare back the paid holidays

Grappling with worsening budget deficits and crippling labor costs, some governments are entering the holiday season with proposals to make holidays shorter.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that state and local government workers get an average of 11 paid holidays each year. The average private-sector employee, on the other hand, receives only eight paid holidays.

There's nothing average about California. In addition to being the biggest state, California has one of the country's most liberal holiday schedules. State workers there get 14 paid holidays. Among the paid days off: Columbus Day, Lincoln's Birthday (observed separately from Washington's Birthday, which is commonly celebrated as Presidents Day), Cesar Chavez Day and a floating personal day.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, facing a budget deficit expected to grow to $28 billion by June 2010, has recommended eliminating the Lincoln's Birthday and Columbus Day holidays. The Republican says it would save the state $114 million over the next 19 months.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is not blazing a trail here. New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, dealing with a budget deficit of more than $1 billion, cut Lincoln's Birthday and the day after Thanksgiving from his state's paid holidays. Utah has also made Columbus Day a normal work day for state employees.

"We think it's not so painful to give up a couple of holidays," said Mike Genest, Gov. Schwarzenegger's finance director.

There once was a time when government workers accepted slightly lower wages as a tradeoff for greater job stability, better retirement benefits and a more favorable work schedule loaded with holidays. But those days are long gone, especially in Nevada. Government workers are now the highest-paid sector of the state's work force. They enjoy lavish pensions and they get more vacation and sick pay than the private-sector workers who pay their salaries. Receiving, on average, an extra week's worth of paid holidays on top of that is generous in the extreme.

All Nevada governments are under increasing fiscal strain. The state's budget shortfall for the current biennium could reach $1.5 billion. Local governments are being squeezed by labor contracts that swallow an increasing share of annual revenues. Eliminating paid holidays could help balance their budgets.

The state, Clark County and city of Las Vegas offer workers 11 paid holidays apiece, but the county and city also provide a bonus "personal day" to each worker as a birthday present. The city of Henderson gives its workers 12 full holidays, including Columbus Day, as well as a half-day off with pay on Christmas Eve. (Which means you'll find them all still at work at 11:50 a.m. right?)

The most obvious targets are the holidays that most businesses can't afford to offer: Columbus Day, Nevada Day, the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve among them. The Nevada Day holiday is meaningless most years, because formal observance of the actual anniversary of our statehood was deemed less important than giving government workers another three-day weekend.

And though many thousands of private-sector workers stay home the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve to be with their families, they have to burn vacation days to do it. It's not asking a lot to expect public employees to do the same.

In a down economy, this is fundamentally an issue of fairness. Why, when so many workers and businesses are cutting costs just to survive, should they be expected to continue to pay for benefits they don't enjoy themselves?