Many of our content types are setup to lock the alias at whatever it was set to when the node was changed to publish. After that, any changes to title or other alias pattern elements that make up the alias, will not alter the alias. Which content types are affected by this lockdown are specified in _va_gov_backend_get_locked_alias_bundles() in va_gov_backend.module See the function for the most up-to-date list of content types affected. The Alias can be updated on the node by anyone that has permission to see the alias widget.