Journal of Arboriculture 31(6): November 2005 289 allowed by Tree City USA may not have been included, such as money spent by a private utility on line clearance in the community or nonmonetary donations. Still, it seems evident that of the communities with a forestry budget, those with the lowest funding for forestry programs tend to be in the 1,001 to 10,000 population range. Our per capita figure of $2.58 is identical to the median for Oregon in 1992 (Reichenbach et al. 1992) and is close to the national means of $2.60 per capita for 1986 (Kielbaso 1990) and $2.49 per capita for 1994 (Tschantz and Sacamano 1995). Adjusting the 1994 figure of $2.49 for 21% inflation between 1994 and 2002 (BLS 2005) gives $3.02 per capita, so our $2.58 figure actually means a reduction of $0.44 per capita since 1994. Our figure was well below $5.35 per capita reported for California for 1997, or $6 to $10 per capita recommended by the National Association of State Foresters in 1988 (NASF 1988) for adequately funded comprehensive programs. Funding also was examined on a per tree basis by dividing the total community tree budget by the number of public trees (“Per tree” row in Table 1). Per tree funding averaged $25.16 for all communities and was by far highest in the smallest communities (less than 500 population) at $41 per tree. The lowest per tree spending was for some of the smallest commu- nities (501 to 1,000) and the largest cities (more than 50,000). Intermediate-sized communities spent in the low to mid $20s per tree. Utah’s $25.16 per tree compares favorably with $10.62 per tree nationally and $13.11 per tree in the U.S. West in 1986 ($17.43 and $21.52, inflation adjusted to 2002; BLS 2005) (Kielbaso 1990), and $19 per tree ($21.30 adjusted) in California in 1997 (Thomson and Ahern 2000). On the other hand, high spending per tree could mean relatively inefficient programs or low tree numbers, the latter of which will be discussed later in the “Number of Community Trees” section. Tree Budget Spending by Area and Management Task. Respondents were asked to estimate the percentage of their community’s tree budget spent on managing trees in particu- lar types of areas. Across all populations, the most money was spent on trees in parks (38% to 63%, depending on city population). Street trees also were a high spending priority, but only for cities above 3,000 population, where it ranged from 18% to 40% of tree-related spending. Street tree spending was listed as a major priority by 29% of communi- ties, averaging 40.4% of tree spending for the five largest cities, but only 5% to 7% for small towns (under 3,000 population). In towns under 500, 21% was spent on manag- ing trees in cemeteries, and this percentage decreased steadily to only 3% for cities with a population of more than 50,000. A very small percentage was spent on trees in undeveloped natural areas, arboreta, golf courses, and school grounds. Nationally, in 1986, street trees received 61% of community tree budgets followed by parks at 26% (Kielbaso 1990). In 1994, U.S. communities spent 3.7 times more on street trees than park trees (Tschantz and Sacamano 1995). Respondents estimated the percentage of their tree budgets spent on various tree management tasks in the previous fiscal year. Regardless of population, planting and maintenance received most of the funding, each amounting to about 35% of total tree spending (Table 2). Cities and towns with populations under 10,000 spent, on average, less than 2% on administration compared to cities with populations of 10,001 to 50,000 (6%) or above 50,000 (14%). This general pattern also held for equipment purchases, which were low (1.7% or less) for communities with populations of 10,000 or less, and considerably higher for cities with populations of 10,001 to 50,000 (4.4%) and above 50,000 (8.8%) (Table 2). In comparison, Oregon communities spent proportionately less on planting (25% of their tree funds), a similar proportion on maintenance (33%), and much more on administration (26%) (Reichenbach et al. 1992). National figures for 1986 (Kielbaso 1990) included an even lower budget proportion for planting (14%) and larger proportions for maintenance (46%) and administration (8%). Table 2. Average percentage of last fiscal year’s community forestry budget spent on performing certain types of tasks, and the maintenance/planting ratio. Standard errors are given in parentheses. Task Planting Maintenance Removal Maintenance/ planting ratio* Equipment Administration Other 118–500 (N = 13) 22.7% 52.7% 8.9% 2.7 0.8% 0.0% 7.3% 501–1K (N = 6) 60.8% 20.8% 16.8% 0.6 1.7% 0.0% 0.0% 1K–3K (N = 17) 33.7% 25.9% 14.2% 1.2 0.6% 1.5% 6.5% Town population class 3K–10K (N = 19) 50.5% 29.6% 8.8% 0.8 0.5% 0.5% 4.7% *Maintenance/planting ratio is the sum of maintenance and removal divided by planting. ©2005 International Society of Arboriculture 10K–50K (N = 17) 27.2% 39.2% 10.4% 1.8 4.4% 5.9% 12.9% > 50,000 (N = 5) 15.0% 49.0% 13.0% 4.1 8.8% 13.6% 0.6% All towns (N = 77) 35.5% (4.0) 35.4% (3.8) 11.3% (2.4) 1.6 3.2% (0.6) 2.6% (0.7) 6.7% (2.7)
November 2005
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