I heard from a Minnehaha County official today that the state has told them and other counties that the State is giving 3 paid days off this year for Christmas. Counties of course rely on State employees to do business, so when the state takes a day off, counties do to. So how will the counties across the state handle it? Will they also give their employees 3 paid days off? This will be interesting to see how this is handled. While I don’t have a problem with State or County employees taking off Monday December 23, they should only be able to do without pay or use PTO, this should NOT be a taxpayer expense for essentially a religious (not government) holiday – heck, it’s NOT even a holiday – It’s two days before!