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 Assembly members pressed Billingsley on how she would balance enforcing organizational policies with supporting supervisors and retaining staff, and on how HR will address scheduling and pay issues raised by the fire service.

Key points from the hearing

- Department condition and priorities: Billingsley said low morale and defensiveness followed months of turnover, and she described a mix of immediate fixes (for example, simple communications changes) and longer-term projects. She called for “some grace” while the department rebuilds staffing levels.

- Recruitment and qualifications: Billingsley said the administration is shifting decision authority so department subject-matter experts have more input on whether candidates’ experience satisfies minimum qualifications. She described a pilot “Raider program” to give departments greater say in recruitment decisions.

- Workforce supports and development: Billingsley outlined efforts across the employee life cycle, including a cohort-style new-employee orientation, an RFP for cohort-based leadership training for supervisors, and expanded awareness of employee assistance programs and other benefits.

- Data and performance measures: The HR office is tracking hires, separations and processing times for personnel actions. Billingsley said the municipality is conducting an employee satisfaction survey via an outside vendor (referred to as the Alara group in the hearing) and has launched standardized exit interviews to gather reasons for separations; results will be used to guide changes.

- Records and systems: Billingsley said the municipality lacks comprehensive electronic personnel records and identified digitizing paper files and improving SAP configurations as a priority that will require funding and time.

- Labor relations and fire service issues: Assembly members raised fire-service scheduling, holiday/leave calculations and staffing standards. Billingsley said HR negotiated a memorandum of understanding in July to create a Labor Relations Action Group (LRAG) that will include the fire chief, union leadership and an Office of Management and Budget representative to examine cross-staffing, alternate schedules and long-term changes such as a move toward platoon structures or Kelly schedules. She cautioned such changes are “logistically really complicated” and likely multiyear projects.

- Code revision: Members and Billingsley discussed updating the municipality’s personnel code (referred to in the hearing as Title 3 of the municipal code). Billingsley said she has notes of suggested code changes and experience drafting ordinances, and she supported a coordinated project to revise the HR code, possibly using outside consulting resources if internal capacity is insufficient.

What the Assembly directed or decided at the hearing

No confirmation vote occurred during the work session. The Assembly heard testimony, asked questions and was told the confirmation item (AM 598-2025) will be brought back for consideration at the Assembly meeting on Tuesday. Several members asked for continued reporting on the workforce study, employee-survey results and progress on code changes.

Looking ahead

Billingsley and staff signaled several near-term deliverables: finalize the employee-survey questions with the vendor and partners (including the Office of Equity and Inclusion), continue digitization planning for personnel records, staff the LRAG to address fire-service scheduling issues and provide periodic data on hiring, separations and key HR processing times. The Assembly did not take a formal vote in the session.

(Quotes in this story come from the Aug. 8 confirmation hearing transcript of AM 598-2025.)