Tree-Trimmers Pitched For 3,500+ Backlog

Springing for two new tree trimmers and a foreman would help the parks department respond to all 2,300 annual trimming and removal requests and to start chipping away at the city’s tree-request backlog.

City Parks Director Becky Bombero made that pitch in the Aldermanic Chambers of City Hall during a six-hour Finance Committee budget workshop regarding Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed $556.6 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2019 – 2020 (FY20).

Bombero’s budget proposes adding three new positions to her department to help chip away at an ever-growing backlog of unattended arboreal issues in the Elm City.

Those proposed positions are two new tree trimmers, with budgeted salaries of $50,531 each, and a new tree foreman, with a budgeted salary of $56,229. The proposed staff increase would bulk up the department’s tree division to 10 full-time employees, including six tree trimmers, a tree foreman, an urban forester, a caretaker, and a heavy duty equipment operator.

The city has over 30,000 street trees, Bombero told the alders, and an undetermined number in its 142 different parks.

It receives roughly 2,300 tree-related requests every year, At currently staffing levels, Bombero said, her department can respond to around only 1,700 of those requests per year. The remaining 600 requests are added to an ever-growing backlog.

As of April 18, that backlog is 3,534 tree-related requests deep.

“We have both an annual backlog and a systematic backlog, year over year,” she said.

Click here to download a copy of the department’s budget presentation, and here to download a copy of a recent tree-specific presentation that Bombero gave to the aldermanic City Services and Environmental Policy Committee (CSEP) in February.

Her plan, per the mayor’s proposed budget, is to promote one existing tree trimmer to the role of tree foreman, who can supervise the city’s tree trimming crews, and then hire three new tree trimmers to fill out the one existing and two proposed new positions.

At that capacity of six tree trimmers and one tree foreman, she said, her department will be able to staff three bucket trucks reserved specifically for tree trimming work. Currently, she said, the department only has two tree trimming bucket trucks, but is in the process of purchasing a third with current fiscal year capital fund dollars.

East Rock Alder Anna Festa asked Bombero about the state of repair, or disrepair, of the current bucket trucks. During an aldermanic City Services and Environmental Policy Committee (CSEP) meeting in February, the parks director told the alders that one of the city’s two tree trimming trucks was then out of commission.

“Both bucket trucks are currently operational,” Bombero said. In fact, she said, the department is in the process of going out to bid to purchase a third.

Her goal had initially been to go after funds made available through the Volkswagen (VW) emissions cheating scandal, which would have covered 70 percent of the cost of buying a new truck. But the city parks department didn’t receive any VW grant money from the state for the purpose of buying new vehicles, and therefore she decided to use existing capital funds instead.

If the alders approve the new tree trimming positions, she said, then that crew will use the newly purchased bucket truck. If the Board of Alders don’t sign off on the new positions, she said, then the new truck will simply replace one of the existing trucks.

“Would it make more sense to hire contractors rather than create these new positions to address the tree backlog?” Festa asked.

Bombero said internal crews are actually slightly cheaper to use than outside contractors, assuming a normal rate of injuries and worker’s comp.

“The recommendation for the new crew is to get us to a systematic point where we don’t create a backlog,” she said. ​“The number of requests each year exceed our internal capacity. The new crews would bring closer to parity the internal capacity with the number of annual requests.”