Elected Officials: What you need to know about NIMS

The National Incident Management System (NIMS) was issued by the Department of Homeland Security 
on March 1, 2004, to provide a comprehensive and consistent national approach to all-hazard incident 
management at all jurisdictional levels and across all functional emergency management disciplines.    

The support of elected and appointed officials in the NIMS implementation process nationwide is critical 
to the nation's success in preventing, preparing for, responding to and recovering from emergencies and 
disasters.

Who should lead this effort? Locally elected and appointed officials. 

The benefit of NIMS is most evident at the local level, when a community as a whole prepares for and 
provides an integrated response to an incident. Chief elected and appointed officials need to be involved 
in all aspects of NIMS implementation to include the following:

Adopt NIMS at the community level for all government departments and agencies and encourage NIMS 
adoption and use by associations, utilities, non-government organizations and the private sector.  NIMS 
should be adopted through executive order, proclamation, resolution, or legislation as the jurisdiction's 
official all-hazards, incident response system.

The NIMS requires the use of the Incident Command System, the multi-agency coordination systems and 
a public information system.  All these command and management systems require the direct involvement 
of chief elected and appointed officials in a community during emergencies/disasters.

NIMS requires all emergency plans and SOPs to incorporate NIMS components, principles and policies, 
to include emergency planning, training, response, exercises, equipment, evaluation, and corrective 
actions.  Chief elected and appointed officials in a community need to be directly involved in these NIMS 
preparedness elements, especially the elements dealing with exercising community emergency 
management policies, plans, procedures and resources.

Jurisdictions will be required to meet the FY 2006 NIMS implementation requirements as a condition of 
receiving federal preparedness funding assistance in FY 2007.  However, it is important to recognize that 
the NIMS is a dynamic system, and the doctrine as well as the implementation requirements will continue 
to evolve as our emergency management capabilities nationwide change based on the hazards and threats 
of the nation.

Local chief elected and appointed officials are urged to complete the IS-700 NIMS: An Introduction, 
training course, which is available online from the Emergency Management Institute at 
http://training.fema.gov/emiweb/IS/crslist.asp .

The NIMS Integration Center
March 2006
www.fema.gov/nims