A bill that would change Juneteenth (June 19th) from a day of special observance to a legal holiday was recommended for passage by the Senate Finance, Ways, and Means committee on March 21st. As the Flyer reported, the bill was sponsored by Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), but it had stalled in recent legislative sessions.
Sen. Raumesh Akbari( D-Memphis,) explained the importance of the holiday, stating that on June 19th, 1865, 2,000 Union soldiers marched into Galveston, Texas, to let all enslaved people know that they had been freed. While the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed two-and-a-half years earlier, Akbari said that Juneteenth marked the true end of slavery for Americans.
Sen. Akbari said that the holiday was not only important for African Americans, but also for other Tennesseans across the state. Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald,) said that he had asked several people within his district if they knew what Juneteenth was and that very few people knew. Hensley said that he would be voting “no” on the bill. “I don’t think we need to be making a holiday for something that happened in Texas.”
Akbari countered that the city of Columbia, Tennessee, had already decided to recognize Juneteenth as an official city holiday in 2020. But Hensley said that he would be voting “no” on the bill was because of its potential financial impact. “This is going to cost the state $700,000. It’s a holiday that most people don’t know what it is. It’s coming two weeks after Memorial Day, two weeks before July the 4th. I just don’t think we need to make a holiday just because the Federal government does, I don’t think we need to.”
Information provided by the Department of Human Resources on the fiscal note of the bill, assumed that “approximately 4,000 employees earn compensatory time or some type of overtime annually on July 4th. It was estimated that the value of “earned time, based on the hourly rates of employees,” was $691,890.
“Due to multiple unknown factors, the precise amount of any such increase in expenditures cannot be quantified but is reasonably estimated to range from $173 per employee per holiday ($691,890 / 4,000) up to $691,890 for all employees per holiday. Therefore, the annual increase in fiscal liability to the state is up to $691,890,” the note said.
Despite Hensley’s concerns, the bill was recommended for passage.
