280 Hauer and Johnson: State U&CF Program Funding, Technical Assistance, and Financial Assistance Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 2008. 34(5):280–289. State Urban and Community Forestry Program Funding, Technical Assistance, and Financial Assistance within the 50 United States Richard J. Hauer and Gary R. Johnson Abstract. This article describes the enabling legislation for technical and financial assistance, types and frequency of technical and financial assistance, and funding of urban & community forestry (U&CF) programs to the 50 United States. In 2002, $30.7 million in federal and state money financed the 50 state U&CF programs. Federal funding accounted for 60% ($18.5 million) and state funding was 33% ($10.2 million) of the total. Half of the $36 million federal government U&CF allocation in 2002 went directly to state U&CF programs. State U&CF programs distributed 38.3% of programmonies (from all funding sources) to local programs through grants. Remaining program monies were used to support state U&CF programs through providing technical assistance, council administration, volunteer partnerships, and program administration. Nearly 60% of the state U&CF coordinators suggested funding of their state U&CF was inadequate to meet current needs and indicated a 60.9% mean increase in program funding was needed. All state coordinators believed their state U&CF program would decline if federal funding was eliminated. Nearly one-third believed their state program would end and nearly half believed a severe reduction in the state program would occur if federal funding was eliminated. Only 42% of state U&CF programs had enabling legislation that authorized financial and/or technical assistance. Other entities that provide U&CF assistance were identified with the Cooperative Extension Service most frequently cited. Key Words. Technical and financial assistance; urban and community forestry; urban forestry program capacity model. Urban and community forests (U&CF) produce identifiable and tangible benefits (i.e., environmental, economic, sociologic) that often surpass the costs of inputs used to establish and maintain them (Nowak and Dwyer 2000; Kuo 2003; McPherson 2003; Westphal 2003). Within the continental United States, there is an urban forest resource containing 3.8 billion trees with an esti- mated $2.4 trillion value (Nowak et al. 2002). Although a vast array of data reveals that benefits surpass costs associated with U&CF programs, the impetus to establish U&CF programs is lacking in many communities (Kielbaso 1990; Tschantz and Sacamano 1994; Clark et al. 1997; Thompson and Ahern 2000; Dwyer et al. 2003; Elmendorf et al. 2003; Konijnendijk 2003; Schroeder et al. 2003; Hortscience and Aslan Group 2004). State and federal U&CF programs have been created as a means to foster the development and enhancement of local U&CF pro- grams and efforts. A regularly stated outcome of state and federal U&CF pro- grams is to help a community or local entity become self- sufficient through a developed ability or capacity. State and fed- eral U&CF programs regularly use, but do not explicitly define, capacity. Standard dictionaries define capacity as the ability to perform or produce, to do something, and an optimum amount that can be produced. As an example, since the mid-1990s, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service (USDA-FS) de- veloped strategic goals or outcomes to “increase the capacity of state forestry agencies, local governments, and the private sector to create and implement local programs that will sustain and improve urban and community natural resources” and further increase capacity within the agency (USDA-FS 1996, 2002b, 2002c). Hauer (2005, 2006) created three definitions of capacity for urban forestry programs and to describe the state of the ©2008 International Society of Arboriculture urban forest based on available structure (i.e., components of a system such as policy, enabling mechanisms, people, biotic re- sources) to develop or maintain the urban forest at a given level. These three definitions include: Urban Forestry Program Ca- pacity—the structure an urban forestry agency, entity, munici- pality, nonprofit organization, and others have in place to sup- port urban forest development and sustainability at a local, re- gional, or national scale; Urban Forest Development Capacity— the ability to incrementally improve the state of the urban forest to a higher level with a given set of structure as inputs; and Urban Forest Sustainability Capacity—the level of structure as inputs needed to maintain the urban forest at a given state within a given time period. Increasing or building of capacity within local U&CF programs is a goal of federal and state U&CF pro- grams through technical assistance, financial assistance, and education. The USDS-FS described state U&CF program activity with five terms: inactive, project, formative, developmental, and sus- tainable (Table 1). Local programs range widely across these categories (Hortscience and Aslan Group 2004; Hauer 2005; Hauer and Johnson 2008). Sustainable implies the structure within the urban forestry program, including such areas as fi- nancial, political, community participation, staffing, equipment, and contracting that are sufficient to perpetuate the current and foreseeable urban forest at a socially preferred level (Clark et al. 1997; Dwyer et al. 2003; Hauer 2005, 2006). In the United States, over half of the communities with a population exceeding 100 people had no U&CF program in 2003 (Hauer 2005). During this same time period, less than 10% of communities had U&CF programs rated as sustainable based on the USDA-FS Perfor- mance Measurement Accountability System (PMAS) evaluation
September 2008
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