https://www.americancityandcounty.com/wp-content/themes/acc_child/assets/images/logo/footer-logo.png
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Hybrid Work
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcast
    • Latest videos
    • Product Guides
  • Resources & Events
    • Back
    • Resources
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • IWCE 2022
    • How to Contribute
    • Municipal Cost Index – Archive
    • Equipment Watch Page
    • American City & County Awards
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Statement
    • Terms of Service
American City and County
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • Co-op Solutions
  • Hybrid Work
  • Commentaries
  • News
  • In-Depth
  • Multimedia
    • Back
    • Podcasts
    • Latest videos
    • Product Guides
  • Resources/Events
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers/eBooks
    • IWCE Expo
    • Calendar of Events
    • How to Contribute
    • American City & County Awards
    • Municipal Cost Index
    • Equipment Watch Page
  • About Us
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Stament
    • Terms of Service
  • newsletter
  • Administration
  • Economy & Finance
  • Procurement
  • Public Safety
  • Public Works & Utilities
  • Smart Cities & Technology
  • Magazine
acc.com

Commentaries


Commentary

Commentary: Time for “business continuity” planning for local governments

Commentary: Time for “business continuity” planning for local governments

Systems Audit Group president Steven Lewis explains the importance of business continuity plans in the wake of disasters and how they can be implemented in local governments.
  • Written by American City & County Administrator
  • 6th April 2016

By Steven Lewis

Many local governments today are recognizing the need to develop “Business Continuity” (BC) plans in order to cope with disasters.  The purpose of these plans is to be able to continue such “business” functions as employee payroll, retiree payments, sending out tax notices, collecting and processing taxes, etc.

Municipalities usually turn to their CIO or head of Information Technology to provide BC planning, since they perceive that the plan will revolve around their computer systems.  What we’ve seen, however, is that the local-government CIO’s are not well equipped or trained in developing and implementing BC plans, and often have no idea as to how to proceed in a systematic fashion. 

What is outlined below is a pragmatic approach that we have implemented over the years, and which we believe municipalities can find helpful in developing their own BC plans.

 

GETTING STARTED

Initially, the planning process can seem quite daunting, given the seemingly-infinite number of ways in which disasters can strike.  However, in our experience we have seen that focusing on the effects of the disaster – rather than the specific phenomenon which caused the disaster, greatly reduces the number of variables to be considered.  These effects can be grouped into the following three categories, each of which is discussed in turn:

            – loss of information,

            – loss of access,

            – loss of personnel.
 

LOSS OF INFORMATION

This category includes the destruction of information which the organization needs in order carry out its functions.  The loss could have been caused by events ranging from the “low-tech” destruction of paper files in a fire, up to the “high-tech” destruction of network files by a computer virus.

 

LOSS OF ACCESS

This category includes the loss of access to information, buildings, tools, equipment, etc.  The access loss could have been caused by civil disruption blocking streets, extreme weather, equipment breakage, loss of electric power, downed communications lines, lack of “digital ID’s” on home computers, etc.

 

LOSS OF PEOPLE

This can result from pandemic illness or quarantine, national guard emergency call-up, inability to travel due to extreme weather, etc.  Many local governments with small staffs suffer from a lack of sufficient cross-training, so that there are some key functions which can be performed by only one or two individuals, which can’t be performed if they are unavailable. 

 

THE BC PLANNING PROCESS

The first stage of the planning process is often referred to as the “Business Impact Analysis” (BIA).  This stage begins by interviewing the key personnel in each administrative department.  These interviews are designed to help quantify the actual impacts on that department of each of the three categories of loss, as well as to indicate the nature of acceptable Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives (eg., the amount of data loss) which each department could tolerate.

This stage also includes a review of the seasonal variations in departmental workloads throughout the year, as well as dependencies on key outside suppliers such as single-source vendors supporting the operations of taxing, collections, direct-deposit payroll processing, etc.  It also documents the unique risks and vulnerabilities of each department, as well as manual work-arounds available for each function in the event of the loss of computer availability.

Following this, the tasks associated with the restoration of each function are outlined, along with specific personnel assigned to each task.

Next, the actual times to restoration are estimated and compared with the desired Recovery Time Objective for each function.  The differences between these two then need to be reconciled – which can often require considerable negotiations, procedural changes and/or the acquisition of new equipment. 

The results of these steps allows the prioritization of the relevant applications and functions and their combination into a comprehensive BC plan.

Finally, the BC plan must be tested.  Since typically, the first round of testing fails for numerous reasons, usually a well-defined high-value function such as Payroll is tested first.  Once the issues have been worked out for this application, additional functions such as Accounting, Purchasing, Retirement, etc., can be tested on an individual basis.  Ultimately, the goal of the testing process is the restoration and testing of all high-priority applications at the same time.

 

THE BENEFIT OF THE BC PLANNING PROCESS

As a result of conducting the BC planning process, municipalities are able to get a clear understanding of their abilities and limitations regarding the restoration of each of their functions, as well as a better understanding of the risks and vulnerabilities which each faces.  This can result in beneficial in-advance decision-making rather than trying to reach consensus during the chaos of a disaster.  It can also result in clear top-down direction to each department regarding the sequence of steps to be taken after a disaster.  Finally, the testing experience is able to expose problems in restoration at a point in time when they can be easily corrected, rather than trying to correct them during the aftermath of a disaster.

 

Steven Lewis is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) with a Masters and Bachelors in Engineering from Cornell University.  He is the President of The Systems Audit Group, Inc (www.Disaster-Help.com) During the last twenty years, he and his organization have developed dozens of comprehensive disaster-recovery/business-continuity plans for complex networked-based organizations.  The bulk of these plans were subject to regulatory review, and all were approved by clients’ Regulatory Agencies.  Mr. Lewis can be reached at [email protected].

 

_____________

To get connected and stay up-to-date with similar content from American City & County:
Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter
Watch us on YouTube

Tags: Administration Public Safety Commentaries Commentary

Most Recent


  • crisis
    Navigating crises with confidence: Five ways strategic plans support crisis response
    Some crises are short-lived, barging through our lives and routines, and before we can get a sense of what’s happened, we’re left dealing with the aftermath. But many crises build slowly, with many early warning signs, and once they’vehit their breaking point, panic and uncertainty overwhelm the ability of leaders to think clearly and mitigate […]
  • 2022 Crown Communities Award winner: Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts' jury selection system
    The Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts is revolutionizing the jury selection process.  In many jurisdictions, jury duty is perceived as an obligatory nuisance. On their appointed day, potential jurors arrive early and stay late. They read books or watch television to pass the time as judges and attorneys make in-person selections from the pool of […]
  • digital
    How to leverage digital tools to drive innovation in government
    The rapid evolution of digital technologies transformed the way governments function, making them more efficient, transparent and citizen-friendly. Rather than relying on crystal trophies, governments can leverage digital tools to drive innovation and streamline processes, benefiting the population they serve. Open data and crowdsourcing Open data refers to making government data available to the public, […]
  • last-mile
    How green last-mile infrastructure benefits your community
    Overseeing transportation is one of the most important jobs of municipal leaders as it underpins a wide range of aspects within a municipality, including its economy, community connectedness and the health of the local environment. One of the most deceptively challenging elements of effectively overseeing transportation is the development of last-mile transit infrastructure. That is, […]

Related Content

  • How governments can keep employees safe as they return to work
  • Lessons from your friendly neighborhood public service employees
  • Harris County deploys next-generation security in 150 public buildings
  • How local governments can get ahead of the infrastructure wave: Strategies to mitigate risk

WHITE PAPERS


5 reasons why Plan Examiners need Objective Trapeze

30th May 2023

7 Permitting & Licensing Fails Slowing Community Growth

24th May 2023

The Secret Ingredient to Local Government Employee Retention

23rd May 2023
view all

Webinars


How to Centralize and Build a Grants Management Process at your Organization

24th May 2023

Making Permitting Easier: What We’ve Learned Helping America’s Largest Cities Improve Their Permitting Process

16th May 2023

Digital Property Tax Collection: Tales from the Trenches of Modernization

16th May 2023
view all

Podcast


Young Leaders Episode 4 – Cyril Jefferson – City Councilman, High Point, North Carolina

13th October 2020

Young Leaders Episode 3 – Shannon Hardin – City Council President, Columbus, Ohio

27th July 2020

Young Leaders Episode 2 – Christian Williams – Development Services Planner, Goodyear, Ariz.

1st July 2020
view all

GALLERIES


Gallery: Annual index ranks America’s top performing cities; most are in the West

30th May 2023

Gallery: Top 10 American cities for seasonal and summer jobs

25th May 2023

Gallery: 10 of America’s most affordable cities

9th May 2023
view all

Twitter


AmerCityCounty

Digital government comes with massive benefits — and new considerations, from accessibility to security to customer… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

31st May 2023
AmerCityCounty

5 reasons why Plan Examiners need Objective Trapeze dlvr.it/Sptl5z

30th May 2023
AmerCityCounty

Navigating crises with confidence: Five ways strategic plans support crisis response dlvr.it/SptVKN

30th May 2023
AmerCityCounty

Gallery: Annual index ranks America’s top performing cities; most are in the West dlvr.it/SpszdK

30th May 2023
AmerCityCounty

2022 Crown Communities Award winner: Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts’ jury selection system dlvr.it/SphCBk

26th May 2023
AmerCityCounty

Gallery: Top 10 American cities for seasonal and summer jobs dlvr.it/SpdFWy

25th May 2023
AmerCityCounty

How to leverage digital tools to drive innovation in government dlvr.it/Spcktb

25th May 2023
AmerCityCounty

With many cities facing a fiscal cliff as ARPA funding ends, debt ceiling debate continues on Capitol Hill dlvr.it/SpZLph

24th May 2023

Newsletters

Sign up for American City & County’s newsletters to receive regular news and information updates about local governments.

Resale Insights Dashboard

The Resale Insights Dashboard provides model-level data for the entire used equipment market to help you save time and money.

Municipal Cost Index

Updated monthly since 1978, our exclusive Municipal Cost Index shows the effects of inflation on the cost of providing municipal services

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our digital audience? Learn more here.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • IWCE’s Urgent Communications
  • IWCE Expo

WORKING WITH US

  • About Us
  • Contact Us

FOLLOW American City and County ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookie Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2023 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.