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Politics & Government

Council Approves Work on a Plan For Continued Operations During Storms

The Business Continuity Plan would allow normal operations at Town Hall when calamities, such as major storms, strike the town.

 

The Town Council has approved a proposal by LBL Technology Partners for a Business Continuity Plan for Town Hall. The plan will outline a comprehensive strategy as to how town employees will continue to do their jobs and communicate in the event of a disaster which “renders all of Town Hall inoperable and inaccessible.”

The cost of the contract with LBL Technology Partners is not to exceed $41,760, and this amount will be spread out over two fiscal years.  Funding for the plan will come in part from a “Catastrophe Planning” account that was established several years ago but was never spent. The account currently has a balance of approximately $30,000.

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Several months ago, town officials formed a Disaster Preparedness Committee to address concerns about the lack of an emergency plan in town. The committee was formed before Tropical Storm Irene and Winter Storm Alfred hit the area in August and October, but these storms provided extra insight into the types of emergency-preparedness deficiencies that currently exist.

The committee was chaired by Town Clerk Kate Wall and included Jim Wren, Finance Director, Denise Bard, Human Resource Director, Roman Czuchta, Board of Education Director of Operations, Barbara Sagan, IT Director, and John Pajor, Superintendant of Facilities. After reviewing proposals from three vendors, the committee unanimously selected LBL Technology, the mid-priced bid, and rejected the other bids which came in at $37,100 and $74,580.

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According to Kate Wall, the business continuity plan will include discussions with every department in Town Hall to determine which functions and processes are the most vital. The plan marks the first of several steps in the town’s Disaster Preparedness Planning.

“With Topical Storm Irene we had no power, and there was some confusion over how we should be operating or whether we should even be open because there were safety issues,” said Wall. During the Irene power outage, Town payroll had to be processed using a small generator located in the Board of Education offices, because Town Hall does not have its own generator. That same storm also raised concern about town employees receiving payments from taxpayers but not being able to immediately process those payments into the system. The need for a succession plan was also apparent in the wake of the recent storms.

Wall stressed the importance of having ‘working plan’ that is constantly being reviewed and updated and is “not allowed to sit on someone’s desk.”

“We’ll have a five-year maintenance plan, and we’ll also stage a disaster every year,” said Wall. “We’ll do that so we can see what works and what doesn’t work. Then if we have a disaster, we’ll be able to pick up town hall and move it someplace else and operate out of another building or operate under really bad circumstances.”

The plan is scheduled to be completed by Sept. 2012 and will pertain specifically to offices located in Town Hall with the exclusion of the Board of Education offices. A plan for the Board of Education offices would need to be approved and funded separately. 

Once the plan is complete, any additional expenditures recommended by the consultants such as computer servers, generators, or other equipment, will need to be approved separately by the Town Council.

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