OEM manages the City’s Continuity of Operations Planning (COOP) program, which ensures City agencies can continue providing vital public services in the event of an emergency.

In October 2007, Mayor Bloomberg signed a law requiring all City agencies to develop standardized COOP plans. After researching and testing contingency planning software on a small group of agencies, OEM and the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DOITT) worked with IBM to customize the online program for New York City agencies.

Since this pilot phase, OEM has been guiding City agencies through the planning process, and has designed an intranet site with DoITT for agency COOP administrators to gather resources, ask questions, and download planning worksheets. Each City agency will form an internal COOP team to survey its critical functions, and the COOP software will help them determine how to support or reinforce these functions during emergencies.

OEM will oversee the City’s contingency planning until December 31, 2009, when the Mayor’s directive must be completed. While each agency team will have its own plan to maintain essential services, COOP standards, formatting, and language will be uniform.

Development of the City’s COOP program involves five elements:

• The pilot program assessed the critical functions and operational requirements of selected agencies. OEM, DoITT, and IBM studied three agencies and collaboratively developed COOP plans for each agency. 
• OEM and its COOP partners used knowledge of industry practices and City specifications to develop a COOP model to address City agencies’ needs. This model is called COOP methodology.
• OEM and partner organizations configured commercial software for the City’s intranet. The software provides electronic tools for creating COOP plans. To accompany the software, COOP managers at OEM generated a guide to lead City agencies through COOP methodology and the commercial software.
• Administrators continue to run a series of training programs to demonstrate how to use the software and develop successful COOP plans.
• After completing training with OEM and its partners, all City agencies can produce their own continuity plans.