LaFrance budget would add seven city plow operators, cut $1 million in snow contracts

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance's proposed 2027 budget would add seven full-time heavy equipment operators to plow Anchorage roads with city crews and cut $1 million from contracted snow removal. The Anchorage Assembly holds its first public hearing on the budget Tuesday, Oct. 20.

The positions would raise the city's count of heavy equipment operators in the Maintenance and Operations Department from 28 to 35, according to the department's budget chapter.

The Assembly backed a similar plan in June. It voted 11-0 to spend $3.5 million in leftover 2025 road money, including $875,000 to hire seven new heavy equipment operators toward a goal of clearing every municipal road within 72 hours of a storm, Alaska News reported. At that June 23 meeting, an administration official said the money shifted spending from non-labor to labor costs to expand operator capacity and speed up snow removal.

In the 2027 budget, the seven positions would cost $884,260 a year. The budget document describes the $1 million contract cut as partially offset by the new positions, so together the two changes would lower spending by about $116,000. Both sit in the Anchorage Roads and Drainage Service Area fund, run by the Maintenance and Operations Department.

The proposed 2027 general government operating budget totals about $702 million, up from about $675 million in the revised 2026 budget. After Tuesday's hearing, the Assembly plans more work sessions and deliberations, with approval expected in November.