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County discusses continuity-of-operations policy and review of mass-notification system
Summary
Emergency management staff presented a draft countywide continuity-of-operations policy asking departments to identify essential functions, backups and recovery steps; committee also agreed to study the county’s mass‑notification system (Code Red) and broader emergency-management roles in mitigation and recovery.
County emergency management staff presented a draft continuity-of-operations (COOP) policy to the Judicial & Public Safety Committee on Feb. 13 that would ask departments reporting to the county board to identify essential functions, personnel and backup arrangements for loss of people, places or systems.
Scott (department head) said the policy is designed to provide a template for departments to list functions that must continue after an incident and to feed those departmental plans into a county‑wide continuity plan. The draft aims to cover essential services that must resume immediately, within days or within weeks, and to identify staffing, facility and equipment contingencies.
Committee members agreed the proposal should be discussed further with elected offices and administration; Sheriff staff noted a previous county board resolution had designated the sheriff’s office in part to coordinate some security functions and asked for liaison involvement.
Separately, emergency management asked the committee to consider long‑term goals around emergency-management priorities and the county’s mass‑notification tools. The current Code Red contract costs about $37,000 annually from a public-safety technology fund; staff suggested evaluating whether more feature-rich systems (costing perhaps two to three times that amount) would be appropriate for the county’s needs in mitigation, recovery and public notification.
Why it matters: a countywide COOP clarifies responsibilities after a facility outage or disaster and helps ensure continuity of core services; the mass‑notification review addresses whether current tools meet expectations for timely public alerts across the county.
What’s next: staff will continue to solicit departmental feedback, review the draft policy with administration and return with a resolution after further revision; the mass-notification topic was added to committee goals for further study.
