Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 42(4): July 2016 from inflation. Spread out over the 40-year period under comparison in the current study, the rising costs for varying goods and services (such as labor and fuel) should have affected most aspects of municipal government uniformly. This means that inflation can be considered controlled for, so what researchers are really measuring is the pri- oritization that urban forestry has been given. The amount of assistance received from the Texas A&M Forest Service is an important ques- tion because state urban forestry programs can be a valuable resource to local programs. Each state has an urban forestry program coordinator at a mini- mum, paid for through federal funding. Beyond that, state programs vary widely in size and scope as some states supplement federal dollars with their own, while others choose not to (Hauer and John- son 2008). States must meet certain criteria to be eli- gible for federal urban forestry funding, including 1) have an urban and community forestry program coordinator, 2) implement volunteer and partner- ship coordination, 3) create an urban and commu- nity forestry council, and 4) develop a state program strategic plan (five-year plan) (Hauer and Johnson 2008). Meeting these four criteria in itself could be considered an accomplishment; however, the intent is to increase urban forestry activity at the local level, which is accomplished largely through funding and supporting state-level programs (O’Herrin 2013). Few studies have looked at specific examples of assistance provided by a state agency. Ries et al. (2007) conducted a survey of Oregon, U.S., com- munity forestry programs and asked specifically about usage of the state’s website, receiving the state’s newsletter, and receiving technical advice from the state on-site, over the phone, or by email. This study, in Texas, used three broad categories of assistance, and asked about the quantity of assis- tance rather than the quality of that assistance. Financial assistance refers to individual instances, such as number of grants or scholarships to attend conferences, rather than a dollar value. Technical assistance could be the number of times advice was received about draſting a new ordinance, imple- menting a new tree inventory soſtware program, or even a state employee sitting on a hiring panel for a municipal forester position. Educational assistance refers to individual instances of attendance at a con- ference, or reading periodicals (e.g., newsletters). METHODS The Survey The online survey (SurveyMonkey®) was distrib- uted to 243 cities in Texas thought to be home- rule cities. To be a home-rule city in Texas, a community must have a population of 5,000 or greater and meet a few other criteria. In Texas, only home-rule cities can set their own local laws (ordinances). Communities with a popu- lation under 5,000 are known as “general law” towns and can only pass ordinances as allowed by the State, which does not include tree ordi- nances. Since this survey was asking about tree ordinances, only home-rule cities were targeted. Focusing only on home-rule cities is a limitation of this study, and it would be inappropriate to gen- eralize Texas communities of all sizes based on the results of this research. City size categories, based on population of residents, were created as follows: small (5,000–29,999), medium (30,000–99,999), large (100,000–499,999), and mega (500,000 or greater). The intent of this survey was not a random sample, but rather a survey of as many Texas home-rule cities as possible. Surveys were addressed to the individual in city leadership thought to be respon- sible for urban forest management, or who could direct the survey to the appropriate respondent. The initial contact list started with individuals known by the Texas A&M Forest Service to rep- resent their city on matters of urban forestry. This list was supplemented by the inclusion of city employees from the most current membership directories for the Texas City Management Asso- ciation and the Texas Recreation and Park Society. In many instances, multiple individuals within a given city were contacted (about 440 total indi- viduals were contacted); however, multiple surveys representing the same city were never received. A link to the survey website was included in an email that served as a cover letter explain- ing this study. Efforts at contact consisted of the original email and two reminder emails, which included the same link to the survey, over a three-week period, after which the sur- vey was closed. Data analysis of survey results consisted of descriptive statistics and cross- tabulation using Excel® 2013 (Microsoft®). 269 ©2016 International Society of Arboriculture
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