Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 42(4): July 2016 Texas are responsible for 40% more state residents than their Oregon counterparts, which may partly explain how Oregon provides 15% more tech- nical assistance and 5% educational assistance. Overall, 52% of respondents in Oregon and 55% in Texas receive at least some type of assistance whether it be financial, technical, or educational. The results from the Texas study are represen- tative of the state program’s mission statement and budget priorities. The programs in Texas and Oregon are very similar in that as their funding fluctuates over time, they allow financial assis- tance to decline in favor of preserving staff who can provide technical and educational assistance. Texas is providing assistance to about half of the home-rule cities in Texas, and Oregon is provid- ing assistance to about half of the incorporated cities in Oregon. Both states are adapting well to the digital age with increased efficiency by utilizing the internet and digital communica- tion to provide technical and educational assis- tance to communities spread out over vast areas, though face-to-face contact may be suffering. However, both states take a regional representa- tive approach to providing assistance and facili- tate regional workshops, in addition to their annual statewide conference, which may increase opportunities for face-to-face networking. CONCLUSIONS A lack of consistency across studies is clearly evi- dent when reviewing studies of municipal forestry programs. This includes how and with whom the information is shared, what information is col- lected, the frequency of repetition, and whether repetition occurs at all. As a result, direct com- parison of the results of this survey against other studies that surveyed other states was diffi- cult or sometimes impossible. There is a strong need for coordination of these types of studies so that states can compare themselves against their peers, as well as track their own progress over time. The basic level of information presented in this study—What do we have now?—is the start- ing point of any process to plan for improvement. Despite the inability to easily compare these results from Texas directly against other studies, these results are useful to researchers and important to Texas practitioners now. Home- 277 rule municipalities in Texas have a great deal of authority allotted to them by the state gov- ernment to regulate within their jurisdiction, and this is seen in the number of cities that had ordinances regulating tree removal on private property (43%) or requiring the protection of trees during construction on private property (48%). Although, it was disappointing that only 58% of cities had the basic ordinance to regu- late public trees, which is usually an uncontro- versial ordinance. Tree advocates should take note that their support probably means the dif- ference to enacting even this most basic tree ordinance, in addition to more controversial ordinances that regulate trees on private property. Even without another state to compare against, it’s a concern that about one quarter of respond- ing cities don’t even have 0.25 FTE employees dedicated to urban forestry. All those cities with- out urban forestry staff had a population of 43,000 or less, so the lack of staff is probably a result of budget prioritization, or a lack of urban forestry advocacy. The effect of budget con- straints is also seen in the generally downward trend in spending compared to national bench- marks, and the lack of management plans (13%). Comparing the effectiveness of the Texas A&M Forest Service against programs in other states is difficult because there is recent data available for only one other state. Comparison against recent nationwide data would be much more useful. Here, researchers can only conclude that service delivery in Texas is fairly consistent with Oregon. This study was designed to be repeated in the future so changes can be tracked over time, emu- lating successful efforts at consistent repetition in California, Missouri, and Oregon. However, the results of this study have value now to many different groups. Recommendations based on the results and based on information discov- ered while conducting this study are as follows: The Arbor Day Foundation should con- sider a gradual, phased approach to updating the dollars per capita spending requirement of the Tree City USA Award. Once adjusted for inflation, the updated rate is more than four times the current requirement, which was set over 40 years ago and has never been updated. This would provide a more realistic (mod- ©2016 International Society of Arboriculture
July 2016
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