Many Anchorage city employees could soon have paid parental leave and flexible teleworking options. Municipal leaders hope the new policies, if approved, will help fill a high number of vacancies.
“The level of vacancies that we find ourselves with now is historically very out of the norm and high,” said Bill Falsey, Anchorage chief administrative officer. “And that’s really started to affect service delivery.”
On Tuesday, the Assembly will vote on a proposal to extend paid parental leave to most union-represented city employees. If approved, they’ll get four weeks of paid parental leave if they have a child, or adopt or foster a child.
Some city workers already have the benefit. The union for Anchorage police officers enacted paid parental leave late last year. And Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson approved paid parental leave in 2021 for non-union workers. Mayor Dave Bronson revoked it when he took office, but the Assembly later brought it back during his tenure.
Falsey said the fire department’s union will have a chance to add the benefit for its members during contract negotiations in June.
The Assembly is also introducing a proposal that would allow more employees to work remotely. Falsey said when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, almost all city workers began working from home. However, that didn’t last.
“After Covid, we brought everybody back, unlike what just about everybody else did,” Falsey said. “And so there was a great desire to move the municipality into the post-Covid reality that people can work from anywhere and be just as efficient and just as effective.”
Falsey said the city is making additional changes in order to make it a more attractive place for employees. For example, the city will no longer require a GED for its People Mover bus drivers. That department recently announced it would have to scale back its operations due to a driver shortage.
The telework benefit would only apply to members of the Anchorage Municipal Employee Association, a union that represents roughly 400 city workers. AMEA President Paul Hatcher said about half his employees would qualify for telework. And he said paid parental leave has been top of mind for many of his colleagues.
“It’s about a year late,” Hatcher said. “Unfortunately, if we had it a year ago, I know of three employees just in my kind of work group area that could have used it, that all had children.”
He thinks the changes will help bolster the city’s workforce as Anchorage faces increasing competition from the private sector and other government agencies, like the state.
“I think a lot of the problems they’re having with hiring is not being as flexible as some of the private sector, and definitely not the state,” Hatcher said. “I know the state’s really pilfered our numbers quite a bit.”
Both policy changes — if approved by the Assembly — would occur via administrative agreements between the city and the unions that represent the workers in order to bypass the standard contract negotiation process, so they can go into effect quickly.
Hatcher said his union will begin new contract negotiations this January.
Wesley Early covers Anchorage life and city politics for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at wearly@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @wesley_early. Read more about Wesley here.
