Assessment of

New York City's

Citywide Incident Management System (CIMS)
May 17,2004

• Any formal incident management system has been opposed after 9/11 by NYPD
Commissioner Ray Kelly (see attached October 9, 2002, NYT article)

• Many people we have interviewed have stated that (i) Mayor Bloomberg turns to Ray Kelly
first and foremost for all matters relating to public safety and (ii) Ray Kelly consistently has
resisted NYPD losing operational autonomy in any incident

• Over the years the NYPD and FDNY have at times clashed at emergency scenes; operational
autonomy is a big issue, with no department wishing to relinquish command and control to
the other; while some organizational competition maybe healthy, this situation has been
described as a "dysfunctional rivalry"

• NYC announced its adoption of CIMS on May 14, 2004, clearly as a preemptive move in the
face of our hearing

• A secondary reason for the adoption of CIMS is that federal homeland security funding will
become contingent upon jurisdictions adopting the Incident Command System (ICS)
effective Oct. 1,2004

• NYC appears Jo be placating the federal government by attempting to mirror its Citywide
Incident Management System (CIMS) with the National Incident Management System
(NIMS); NYC press release refers to CIMS as being "largely based on the national incident
command model." Largely, but not entirely based.

• Based upon informal conversations with NYC attorneys, it is fair to say that NYC is more
concerned with following the letter of DHS's funding requirements than the spirit of any
mandate

• Under NYC's plan, in response to complex incidents the FDNY and NYPD would each have
"authority to manage the areas of operation that fall within their core competencies." This
does not provide for a clear line of command, and may continue to allow for multiple
incident commanders, with no one person ultimately in charge. Who is in charge when there
is more than one primary agency? For example, who is the incident commander when both
the fire and police show up at a rail incident? In a rail incident, CIMS considers both fire and
police as primary agencies but does not designate an incident commander.

• Concern regarding CIMS is that it has the potential for institutionalizing a dysfunctional
system

• It does not address the fundamental issue, which is the duplication of services that exists
between the NYPD and FDNY; as long as there is duplication of services each department
will view any Incident Command System as encroaching on its bureaucratic turf