The Southampton Town Board voted Thursday morning to close all non-emergency town facilities for the day on July 5, giving many town employees a four-day weekend for Independence Day.
The move was a reversal from two days prior, when the same resolution failed when put before the Town Board.
Town Hall, other town offices, the town court and community centers were already slated to be closed July 4 for the federal holiday, and now they will be closed July 5 as well.
Beaches, the police department and waste transfer stations will remain open.
On Tuesday, the resolution to grant the day off failed when only two members of the five-member board voted for it. Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst and Councilwoman Bridget Fleming were in favor, while Councilman Chris Nuzzi and Councilwoman Christine Preston Scalera were against and Councilman Jim Malone was absent.
During Tuesday's meeting, Throne-Holst said the day off is a "thank you" for employees who exceeding their job requirements several times lately, including during Superstorm Sandy and subsequent severe storms. "We have we an inordinate number of days in this last year where a large number of our employees have been asked to go above and beyond what is their usual schedule, what they're compensated for," she said.
Nuzzi said that there are other ways the town can say thank you without having a financial impact on taxpayers and without closing town facilities to the public during a busy week. Throne-Holst challenged the notion that there is any financial impact, pointing out that employees who don't use their extra day off on July 5 must use it by the end of the year or lose it — they cannot bank the day and cash in when they retire.
"I appreciate the work that our town employees do," Nuzzi said Tuesday. "It's not the Town Board, it's employees of the town of Southampton who make our government function on a daily basis."
But he pointed out that unionized employees are already granted 13 paid holidays and said then in his research he found that the average employees holds 12 weeks of personal and sick days.
"On what is probably the busiest weekend of the summer, July 5, which falls on a Friday this year, I'm not sure that it is doing a service to the taxpayers and the residents of the town to allow for an additional day off outside of the collective bargaining agreement, or for that matter to some of the employees, some of whom are going to have to work by nature of their jobs," Nuzzi said.
Throne-Holst said that because the town does not have the ability to grant raises and bonuses like a private sector business could, an extra day off is the right way to show employees appreciation. And she said July 5 was an ideal date for this.
"We know when we have these, sort of, 'squeeze days' between holidays, very little work gets done anyway because very few members of the public come in and seek our services those days," she said. It also provides for people to be able to travel, to welcome their friends and loved ones in, and have the time to devote to them."
Nuzzi was now swayed. "I don't think it's our money to give, irrespective of how hard our employees work," he said.
Throne-Holst called for a special meeting Thursday morning to reintroduce the resolution with Malone present. This time, the resolution passed with Malone's vote. Scalera voted against it once again, and Nuzzi was absent.
CSEA, administrative, and administrative support staff who must work July 5 will be given eight hours of vacation time to use another day, according to a memo to town employees.
