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Business Continuity Planning

Insuring financial stability during an emergency

Background: How we started

County mandate: Business Impact Analysis500,000+ employees relying on cash availabilityOur priority = cash

– Positioning– Investing– Accounting

Magnitude of our poolGoal: Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

BCP: Assumptions

HQ building affectedUnable to occupy HQ for seven daysOther county locations not affected

BCP: Documenting critical processes

Cash ManagementInvestment OfficeInternal ControlsKeys:– Consistent format– Prioritizing: Green / yellow / red– Systems / Information Technology

BCP: Stakeholder Outreach

Purpose:– Inform stakeholders of TTC processes

Exterior: banks, securities custodian, pool participantsInterior: auditor-controller

– Convey operational impacts– Understand partners’ emergency plans

Tools: – Executive Summary

BCP: Revise Investment Policy

Evaluated Investment Policy (IP) in light of assumptions

Revised IP for short-term investment flexibility– Increased commercial paper limits– Revised money market fund provisions

BCP: Select BCP Offsite Location

Criteria– Distance from HQ– Size– IT & telecommunications functionality– Preference for County facility

First site: conference room at County facility (approx. 20 miles from HQ)New site: dedicated room in Public Administrator warehouse (approx. 20 miles from HQ)

BCP: IT Infrastructure

BCP server at centralized County data locale Critical data: daily upload to serverHardware (“BCP Network”) at BCP siteDuring emergency, remotely access data from server

BCP: Types of data

County applicationsVendor applicationsInternally developed applicationsEmployee files

BCP: Finalize Emergency Manual

Step-by-step proceduresSafeguards sensitive informationIncludes mission statement, criteria for invokingChain of commandCalling tree

BCP: Operationalize

Real time exercise offsiteCompleted actual processes away from HQWorked out “kinks” (e.g., staff realized need for additional files)Second exercise: June 2008 at new site

BCP: Lessons Learned

Keep it simpleKeep focusedMake BCP a priorityUnexpected Benefits

BCP: Going Forward

Institute quarterly trainingSchedule regular drillsContinuously refresh procedures to reflect process changesExpand assumptions / re-plan for longer emergencyDevelop BCP for next-level processes