Butler County and its neighbors’ county governments follow varying patterns when scheduling June holidays.

Butler, Armstrong, Beaver and Westmoreland counties gave Monday, June 14, as a holiday for Flag Day; while Allegheny, Lawrence, Mercer and Venango counties are giving Friday, June 19, as a holiday for Juneteenth.

The reasoning has more to do with administrative functions than the importance of the holidays themselves, according to Butler County Commissioner Leslie Osche.

“Prior to Juneteenth, Flag Day was a (union) negotiated and labor-contracted holiday,” Osche said.

The county has eight unions and 13 observed holidays to contend with. When it became time to negotiate holidays in union contracts, the unions decided to keep Flag Day as an observed holiday instead of observing Juneteenth, Osche said.

“We thought it would go the other way when bargaining that and it did not,” she said.

She clarified county offices and courts will not operate on Juneteenth, but court staff will still be in to work.

Clarion County is the only neighbor of Butler County in which the county government does not give Flag Day or Juneteenth off as holidays. It observes 13 holidays and has five unions to negotiate with.

“That’s just the way it’s always been here,” said Clarion County Commissioner Wayne Brosius.

However, the holidays are more than simply a day off work — they celebrate heritage and the culture of communities.

Flag Day celebrates the adoption of the 13-star U.S. flag on June 14, 1777, according to the National Flag Foundation.

Juneteenth celebrates enslaved people being freed on June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, after the Union Army arrived to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.