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2 <br />PUBLIC WORKS JOINT POWERS <br />MUTUAL AID AGREEMENT <br /> <br />FOREWORD <br /> <br />The general purpose of this Public Works Joint Powers Mutual Aid Agreement <br />(“Agreement”) is to provide a process for units of government to share public works <br />personnel and equipment with other agencies within the State of Minnesota. This <br />Agreement specifically allows a requesting party to select the resources that best meets the <br />needs of a given situation. A requesting party may call upon any other participating party for <br />mutual aid. There is no requirement to make requests through a particular party. In addition, <br />this Agreement should not be interpreted as being limited to providing resources to deal <br />with only major catastrophic situations. Participating parties can utilize the resources for <br />many reasons including routine circumstances such as training efforts, maintenance <br />operations, joint-projects, and back-up support service. This Agreement provides the <br />flexibility for all units of government to use the resources located among all participating <br />parties in the State of Minnesota. <br /> <br />The decision as to when to invoke mutual aid and whether to respond is left to the discretion <br />of the requesting or sending party. Each unit of government should acquaint supervisory <br />personnel with any internal procedures used for mutual aid. While the Joint Powers <br />Agreement does not require particular words or actions to initiate mutual aid, agencies <br />should be clear about whether mutual aid is being requested and what type of assistance is <br />requested. The responding agency should also be clear about what, if any, assistance they <br />will provide in response to the request. Parties should not self-deploy. <br /> <br />Furthermore, each staff member within a department should have a basic familiarity with <br />mutual aid, the responsibilities when reporting to another unit of government and the <br />protections afforded under the unit of government’s workers’ compensation. <br /> <br />For liability reasons, management of a mutual aid situation is under the control of the <br />requesting party. However, the sending party has discretion whether to provide personnel or <br />equipment and can recall such assistance at any time. <br /> <br />While there is no hard and fast time limit related to requests for mutual aid, the commitment <br />of resources can be taxing on agencies. In addition, in some situations an advantage can <br />be gained by ending a mutual aid request and entering into a different form of contractual <br />assistance. <br /> <br />In order to keep this mutual aid agreement closer to local level of government, Hennepin <br />County Emergency Management (“HCEM”) has volunteered to serve as the administrative <br />coordinator for the units of government entering into this Agreement. When a community <br />adopts this Agreement a fully executed copy of the Agreement needs to be forwarded to <br />HCEM. <br /> <br />Each unit of government is responsible for entering and updating available unit of <br />government resources. Resources will now be listed online in a mutually agreed upon <br />resource management database. The parties to this Agreement are solely responsible for <br />updating their available resources in the agreed upon database. <br /> <br />55