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Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/677172
was a practice we would repeat again. During the five years of drought, we drove every street in the City three times. How Much Did it Cost? Another part of our IAP was to track costs, keep our Director informed, and acquire additional funds as needed. Pre- drought average annual expenditure for tree removal was $139,000. In 2011 contract removals ran $191,000—a $52,000 increase. In an effort to project estimated costs for tree removal in 2012, we sampled a portion of the City and drove every street, identifying high risk trees and marking them for remov- al. Comparing tree removals in the same area the previous year, there was a 61% increase in removal costs. We project- ed this figure City-wide and requested an emergency increase in our tree removal budget to $306,000 in 2012. Our projections were believed to be overestimated and we received a contractual budget of our expenditures from the previous year plus 15%, for a new budget of $220,000. Our actual expenditures were $427,000, a budget overage of $207,000, or 94%. The Park and Recreation Department was required to absorb this increase by cutting expenses else- where. Monthly expenditure reports and adjusted projections assisted the department in staying within budget. We used similar methods to project costs for fiscal year 2013 and predicted expenditures to reach $623,000. Once again, our projections were deemed to be overstated. Decision-makers believed that because the drought was over, that most expens- es had been incurred. They did, however, raise our budget over the previous year by 29% to $283,000. By the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2013 we had spent 40% of our budget for tree removal. Drought death peaked in 2013 with the removal of 1,794 City trees at an expense of $596,000. Once again, our department was asked to absorb an overage of $313,000. However, the Risk Management Department believed our mis- sion was truly risk abatement and offered to absorb the excess expenditure with savings in their funds. Because our predictions were so close to actuals the previous two years, in 2014 we were fully funded with more than we requested. We felt the peak had hit and could reduce expen- diture by at least 15%. We were funded with 1% less than the previous year's actual, or $590,000. Our expenditures were $462,000, 20% less than the previous year. Monthly tracking of expenditure and projection revisions allowed us to utilize excess contractual budget in reducing the pruning backlog. By 2015 we were well over-funded at $585,000. We changed our objective to divert funds to contractual pruning to further reduce the Forestry crew's pruning backlog. Our contract administrator was tasked with spending at least 90% of sur- plus funds on pruning without going over budget. In the end she spent 99.9% of the surplus on pruning and brought a work order backlog of 450 down to fewer than 100. The oldest work order going into fiscal year 2015 was three years old. By the end of the year, our oldest work order was less than a year old. Renewal The final aspect of our IAP was to reforest Fort Worth. Except in the poorest of neighborhoods, residential street trees fared better than non-irrigated parks, thanks to watering by resi- dents. Our replacement tree program gives a tree voucher to residents who lost a street tree for any reason. The voucher allows them to pick up a replacement at the City's tree farm. This gives us considerable control over the species to be planted so that we can assure that they are appropriate for the site and for our inventory. We all know the cost to Texas was more than the cost of a tree removal. Now it is more important than ever to plant a tree to restore those benefits to Texas. People were wary of planting trees during watering restrictions; we had to encourage tree planting to overcome that resistance. Now that the drought is over, there is a greatly renewed interest in tree planting. Reforesting Fort Worth will be an ongoing objective. Did we meet the objective of our IAP? Mitigation was three- part: remove risk in a timely manner without loss of life or personal injury by a City tree, save all trees possible, and re-forest. We had no reported personal injury or death from a City tree. The risk was out there, but through the constant assessment, planning, and briefing, we were able to morph our operations to meet our objectives. Nothing helps stretch budgets like Soil Moist Water Management Polymers and Mycorrhizal Products: to reduce water maintenance and plant stress, increase growth rates, improve soil porosity and do more with less… beautifully. 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