Assembly holds confirmation hearing for Anne Marie Billingsley as human resources director

The Anchorage Assembly held a confirmation hearing Friday, Aug. 8, for Anne Marie Billingsley, nominated to serve as the municipality’s human resources director; the Assembly will consider formal confirmation at its next meeting on Tuesday, members said.

The hearing opened with an endorsement from the mayor, who said Billingsley joined the municipality in September 2024 as an assistant municipal attorney and “quickly became indispensable,” praising her experience in the Fairbanks North Star Borough and calling her “a bridge builder at heart who will lead HR with integrity, energy, legality, and compassion.”

Billingsley, serving in an acting HR role for roughly three months, told the Assembly she stepped into a department still recovering from “historic turnover and vacancies” and described the work since arriving as “incredibly rewarding.” She said HR has experienced “over a 50% turnover over the past year,” and that the department still has “11 out of 42 vacancies.” “I stepped in down there right beside them trying to run around and roll up my sleeves,” Billingsley said.

Why it matters: the HR director oversees hiring, classification and labor-relations processes that affect all municipal employees. Several…