SITUATION & NEED
In late 2024, Clackamas County Disaster Management, on behalf of the county administrator, contacted CCS to conduct a specific COOP and BIA process for a pending labor strike that would have occurred in spring 2025. The goal of the project was to identify county departments that depended on union-represented staff and develop BIAs that resulted in showing the impact to the county if the strike would have occurred. CCS had eight weeks to fully develop an engagement plan, conduct in-person and virtual meetings, develop BIAs, and perform a customized aggregated analysis for county leadership. Although the strike was resolved, this planning effort is currently feeding into an annual COOP planning project overseen by Clackamas County Disaster Management with Clackamas County departments and divisions. CCS continues to collaborate with the county in developing BIAs for all departments and divisions in an all-hazards approach, working with key county staff to train them in developing BIAs. As part of this project, CCS is working to integrate the BIA process and tools into their existing COOP platform, VEOCI.
SOLUTION
With the compressed timeline and pending strike, Clackamas County Disaster Management and CCS quickly established a core planning team for this project. CCS worked with key leadership; however, the planning team could not include union-represented staff. The County had previously utilized currently defunct COOP planning software and was transitioning to the new VEOCI COOP platform. CCS began the project by conducting an initial assessment of the outputs from the older planning software and developed a shared Google Drive space which served as the temporary storage location for the project documents.
In addition to developing alternate strategies to carry out essential functions if the function were lost to a union-represented staff, the County wanted a way to understand the impact of the loss of those functions on the County. Therefore, the goals of the strike planning were to work with each affected department and division in identifying, describing, and scoring their essential functions (the Business Impact Analysis) and to assist in developing alternate strategies.
CCS met twice with each affected department/division and developed a unique data collection strategy that included two parts: the Business Impact Analysis and alternate strategy worksheets. CCS facilitated meetings with leadership in completing the alternate strategy worksheets which included information such as: documenting written procedures for the function; identifying which alternate strategy would be utilized for continuing that essential function; interdependencies with potentially-striking internal services departments such as Human Resources, Technology Services, Finance, and Facilities; and staffing plans.
CCS carefully developed the BIA tool and facilitated the BIA interviews anticipating that the work conducted for the strike planning would translate to the annual COOP (i.e., blue skies COOP planning) work once the strike planning ceased. Once all essential functions were identified, described, and scored and alternate strategy plans were developed, CCS aggregated these data into one spreadsheet for the Clackamas County Administrator and other leadership. This analysis included all county essential functions (identified for the strike planning), the alternate strategy selected, any noted interdependencies, and potential issues. CCS also provided an aggregated analysis of essential functions BIA scored high to low; an aggregation of those functions that scored high in disproportionate impacts to vulnerable populations; and an aggregation of those functions that scored high in life-safety to staff or community members.
OUTCOME
Although the union strike was averted on April 14, 2025, CCS continues to work with Clackamas County Disaster Management and all County departments and divisions on blue sky COOP planning. For those departments and divisions that were involved in the strike planning, CCS had led them through a seamless transition from that previous BIA data collection to annual planning efforts. CCS is also working with the County in assessing the VEOCI platform and developing training materials for departments and divisions to integrate the BIA process into the platform. CCS is training a County staff member to conduct Business Impact Analyses independently, further strengthening the County’s internal capacity and resilience in COOP planning. By building this in-house expertise, the County will be better equipped to regularly assess critical functions, identify potential operational vulnerabilities, and update COOP strategies as organizational needs evolve, ultimately supporting a more sustainable and proactive continuity program.
