Anchorage Mayor Bronson revokes policies for city workers intended to support new parents

Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson has revoked two policies for some city workers meant to support employees with infants: a paid parental leave policy and a policy intended to allow nursing mothers to bring their babies to work.

The city’s paid parental leave policy provided four weeks of paid leave for workers after the birth of a child or a foster care or adoption placement. The time off was meant to improve the health of the child and parent and improve employee retention and morale, according to the policy.

Another policy allowed parents of children under 6 months old to bring them to work, according to the policy. It was implemented last summer by former Mayor Ethan Berkowitz.

The paid parental leave policy was enacted by former Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson one day before Bronson, a self-described conservative, took office on July 1.

Bronson in a statement said the policy was “announced hastily only hours before the previous administration left office.”

“It came with virtually no data, information, or even a basic understanding for how it would impact the Municipality’s budget or financial outlook,” Bronson said. “Unfortunately, this change in policy which favored MOA executives and non-represented employees would have led to a massive financial liability that the Municipality could simply not afford.”

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The policy applied only to nonunionized and executive employees and none had used it during its brief lifespan, according to the mayor’s office.

The mayor’s office did not say how many employees would be directly affected by revoking the leave policy, and the statement did not provide a financial estimate of the policy’s impact.

The revocation of both policies drew questions from Quinn-Davidson, a current Assembly member, and others who say the policies were critical steps the city had taken to support families and children in the workplace.

Quinn-Davidson, in an emailed statement Wednesday, said the U.S. is one of the only wealthy countries without a national parental leave policy. Those policies contribute to healthy development in children, help reduce the infant mortality rate, improve worker productivity and retention, improve maternal health and are good for the economy, she said, referencing a 2020 study on family leave and children’s health outcomes.

“As a result of these positive benefits, employers across the country — including within Alaska — are adding parental leave policies,” Quinn-Davidson said. “I’m disappointed that the Mayor would eliminate a policy that benefits residents, the Municipality, and the economy — and which had been in the works for a year — without a shred of justification or explanation.”

The Anchorage Assembly in July 2020 passed an ordinance allowing for the creation of the policy, which included a financial impact estimate. The Berkowitz administration had estimated the policy would cost, in a worst-case scenario, about $160,000 annually, said former Municipal Manager Bill Falsey, who worked under Berkowitz and Quinn-Davidson.

“It just really is not the case at all that it was announced hastily, that it came with no data or information or that we didn’t know what its financial impacts would be — all of that we had taken care of,” Falsey said.

The city had been developing the policy for well over a year before it was implemented, he said.

Falsey also said that a majority of Anchorage’s city employees are part of a labor union or bargaining unit and that the idea was not to exclude them but to negotiate parental leave at the bargaining table.

The other rescinded policy, which allowed employees to bring infants to work, led to “all sorts of unforeseen circumstances,” Bronson said in the statement.

The city received numerous complaints from employees, labor unions and janitorial staff, he said.

Falsey said that policy was implemented by the Berkowitz administration to allow nursing mothers to take their babies to work.

Only a few executive employees had used it, according to the mayor’s office.

“As applied, this policy created massive issues while favoring only a few executive level employees,” Bronson said. “We recognize the need for adequate child care, but this policy, which was implemented at the height of the previous administration’s stay-at-home orders, is not the right approach.”

The mayor’s office did not say how many complaints it received about the policy.