AGENDA CAPTION:
Title
Consider approval of Resolution 2020-255R, approving an Interlocal Cooperation Agreement for Mutual Aid for Information Technology Services with the City of New Braunfels and other participating entities for the sharing of technology, personnel and equipment in the event of a disaster; authorizing the City Manager or his designee to execute the Agreement on behalf of the City; and declaring an effective dates.
Body
Meeting date: November 17, 2020
Department: Information Technology
Amount & Source of Funding
Funds Required: There is no current budget impact to this agreement. In the event of a disaster condition at the City of San Marcos, a future request of another entity may result in payments for equipment, software, services or overtime to that entity per the scope of the agreement.
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Background Information:
When technology becomes unavailable due to a disaster, cities and counties across the country have found it can become difficult to continue business operations without significant disruptions. These disasters can come in the form of a cyber-security attack, major system failure, tornado or other weather event, or sickness effecting a significant number of IT staff.
While private sector organizations such as cybersecurity specialists, hardware and software vendors can all play a role in helping restore an organization's IT capabilities, municipal IT leaders in Central Texas developed this Interlocal Agreement to provide mutual aid services to a network of government entities participating in the agreement. The agreement provides a framework for organizations like San Marcos to both request help and respond to requests for help in the event of a disaster. Similar to mutual aid agreements used by cities for Fire Department services, this agreement sets the terms in advance to speed response and clarify roles and responsibilities.
The scope of this agreement covers mutual aid services in the form of both personnel and equipment. The response aspect is entirely voluntary, and San Marcos would only provide aid in the case where we had the ability and capacity to respond. The expectation for any responder is not to provide high-level expertise to diagnose, solve or fully remediate the issue, but instead provide additional hands, boots on the ground, that can provide technical assistance while the requesting organization's resources are engaged with the root cause of the disaster. For example, in the case of a cyber-attack, San Marcos as a responding organization would not be tasked with stopping the attack, but could instead provide staff to help re-image computers or provide employee technical support or deploy spare San Marcos PCs for a short period.
The timeline for responding to any event is expected to be short in duration. Costs incurred, such as overtime for responders, would be paid by the requesting organization per this agreement.
The City of New Braunfels has volunteered to take the lead role as the managing entity for the group of participants that would participate in this agreement. They will keep the list of participating agencies and help communicate aid requests when needed. This first agreement is between the three founding organizations, New Braunfels, Sequin and San Marcos. Representatives from Texas State and San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District have also indicated their interest in adopting the ILA as well.
Adopting a mutual aid ILA for technology is a best practice approach to preparing for cyber and other incidents. By adopting the ILA, San Marcos shows that it continues to plan ahead to ensure it is ready to act and respond in the event of future incidents.
The Mutual Aid Agreement will be used during events that are not declared or declared disasters by the Governor of the State of Texas. Once the Governor declares the City of San Marcos a disaster area, the City’s Department of Emergency Management is able to request state assistance.
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Recommendation:
Staff Recommends Approval of this Inter-Local Agreement