July 13, 1999

To:Policy and Finance Committee

From:City Clerk

Subject:City Tree Maintenance Backlog - All Wards

The Economic Development and Parks Committee on July 12, 1999, recommended to the Policy and Finance Committee, and Council, the adoption of the report (June 22, 1999) from the Commissioner of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism, subject to deleting the recommendation embodied therein and inserting in lieu thereof the following:

"(1)that the Economic Development and Parks Committee supports funding in the amount of $1million to be made available in the 1999 Forestry Operating Budget and $1.7 million in 2000, to assist in reducing the City Tree Maintenance backlog, the said funding being designated as new funding added to the Operating Budget; and

(2)that this report be referred to the Policy and Finance Committee for consideration."

The Economic Development and Parks Committee reports having requested the Commissioner of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism to report back to the Economic Development and Parks Committee, in consultation with the City's Tree Advocate, on the following:

(a)a harmonized service level for all parks for the Year 2000 and methods of implementing a maintenance service level with the hiring of more seasonal staff, hiring of existing seasonal staff, and hiring of contractors and associated equipment;

(b)the feasibility and cost factor of providing a written communication to each new tree owner explaining the homeowners responsibilities with regard to the maintenance of same;

(c)an interim progress report on the tree maintenance program for its meeting of November29, 1999;

(d)information as to how individual Councillors can apply for free tree planting for homeowners;

(e)options with respect to cost-sharing with homeowners to expedite tree trimming and pruning, etc., upon approval of the tree maintenance backlog program;

(f)options with respect to the tree planting program as a harmonization scenario; and

(g)the status, regarding the Parks Division in particular, of the maintenance of municipal lawns and gardens for its meeting of November 29, 1999;

Background:

The Economic Development and Parks Committee on July 12, 1999, had before it the following report and communications:

(i)(June 22, 1999) from the Commissioner of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism, recommending that $1 million dollars be made available in the 1999 Forestry capital budget and $1.7 million in 2000 for the purpose of hiring more seasonal staff, holding existing seasonal staff on longer and hiring contractors and associated equipment to aggressively reduce the forestry service backlog;

(ii)(July 5, 1999) from Councillor Joe Pantalone, Trinity Niagara, recommending that the report (June 22, 1999) from the Commissioner of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism be adopted; that the Budget Advisory Committee be requested to report directly to City Council, at its meeting scheduled to be held on July 27, 28 and 29, 1999, on the source of the required funds; and requesting that staff contact him in Committee Room 1 when this matter is being considered so that he may speak on the report and recommendations; and

(iii)(July 12, 1999) from Mr. Brian Cochrane, President, Toronto Civic Employees' Union - CUPE Local 416, in support of the request from the Commissioner of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism for additional funds to clear up the forestry service backlog.

The following Members of Council appeared before the Economic Development and Parks Committee in connection with the foregoing matter:

-Councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski, High Park;

-Councillor Joe Mihevc, York Eglinton; and

-Councillor Joe Pantalone, Trinity Niagara.

for City Clerk

B. Henderson/ms

Item No. 14

c.Commissioner of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism

Councillor Chris Korwin-Kuczynski, High Park

Councillor Joe Mihevc, York Eglinton

Councillor Joe Pantalone, Trinity Niagara

(Report dated June 22, 1999, addressed to the

Economic Development and Parks Committee from the

Commissioner of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism)

Purpose:

At its meeting of November 16, 1998, the Economic Development Committee had before it a tree maintenance backlog report dated November 4, 1998 and requested a report further on:

(1)the best practices in place with respect to tree maintenance in the former municipalities;

(2)any benchmarks which have been, or could have been utilized in this regard; and

(3)the feasibility of the City contracting out these services.

Recommendation:

That $1 million dollars be made available in the 1999 Forestry capital budget and $1.7 million in 2000 for the purpose of hiring more seasonal staff, holding existing seasonal staff on longer and hiring contractors and associated equipment to aggressively reduce the forestry service backlog.

Comments:

Since the November 1998 backlog report, the forestry operations have been shifted from seven to four districts. Within the limits of existing collective agreements and the existing fleet, the crews in all districts work with similar crew configuration and practices on each type of tree work. More work will be done to further integrate forestry crews in this regard after collective bargaining is complete.

The following chart summarizes the backlog of forestry service across Toronto. This is not a straight forward comparison as many operating issues factor in. For example, a service order can be for only one tree or many trees along a street. A tree management information system is currently being implemented to gather information city- wide. Standardized comparisons will be available as the new system is implemented in the year 2000. The numbers represent valid service requests from the public. A small percentage are generated by staff.

Analysis of the data and responses from the public make it clear that service levels are unacceptable. The public is having to wait approximately one year on average for forestry service.

Notes:The chart includes tree planting, maintenance and removal. Even though some operations such as tree removal occur in stages - crown, stem, stump removal and fill and seed - these represent only one service order. One service order often represents more than one tree.

Best Practices:

Our goal is to implement the best possible methods of delivering forestry services to the public. Among others, we are working on flow of work requests, equipment utilization, type of equipment used and suitability of it for the job, communication systems, crew sizes and structures, interaction with other disciplines in other departments, productivity and more.

Resource Management:

From an urban forest resource management point of view, we are similar to all other municipalities in that we do not have systematic inspection and maintenance of trees along streets, in parks, ravines and other natural areas. We are largely driven by requests and hazards as they arise. Such cyclic programs cannot be achieved in a state of huge backlogs as we currently experience. As we strive to eliminate the service backlog, we would implement more systematic maintenance programs.

Productivity:

The forestry management team is focussing efforts on obtaining the best possible productivity for crews. We have looked at structures of crews in each area and learned from other practices. There are currently many classifications of jobs which we plan to redefine to ensure that qualified staff are capable of doing more service within their own classification, thereby simplifying crew assignments and allowing greater flexibility when assigning daily work schedules. This could possibly reduce crew sizes for certain job assignments to enable higher numbers of crews.

Equipment:

Equipment utilization and purchase of the most effective equipment such as combined aerial tower trucks which include chipper boxes and pull chipper units largely eliminate the need for separate chipper trucks for most street tree pruning. Most of the forestry fleet has been converted to these units with some separate units being retained for specialized jobs.

Crew Structure and Size:

Much of our work involves work on the streets and around Hydro wires and our crew sizes and duties are, therefore, governed by legislation to ensure safety of staff, road traffic and hydro plant. To a large extent, our ability to effect major crew structure and size changes is governed by legislative requirements. A third crew member is often required to "spot" the boom of aerial tower trucks in relation to hydro plant or to guide traffic.

Systematic Maintenance/Block Pruning:

The most efficient (by a factor of two as demonstrated in Table 2) and cost effective delivery of any tree maintenance is systematically achieved. That is, crews of appropriate staff methodically service trees as they progress down streets and through areas. This ensures that all required tree maintenance is achieved on any tree that needs it - no trees are missed due to lack of a call to request maintenance. This method also minimizes travel time, reduces set up and take down time of machinery, maximizes coordination with Toronto Hydro control centres and simplifies supervision of crews.

However, due to significant numbers of valid calls received from the public and the expectations that those calls be serviced, municipalities rarely have the opportunity to systematically maintain trees. Instead, tens of thousands of service requests are received annually in Toronto and become computerized as service orders for crews. These are prioritized in order of severity of the maintenance required and grouped into small work areas so that staff and equipment utilization are maximized.

As requests from the public diminish in winter months, crews would historically catch up on the backlog of requests, sometimes to the point where crews can be dispatched to work systematically. Unfortunately, Toronto's current backlog is such that this was not achieved this past winter and backlogs will grow over the 1999 summer season.

One Information System/One Call Centre:

We currently have a large project well underway to consolidate six existing tree management information systems into one system with connectivity in all work locations which will provide much better opportunity to keep accurate record of our inventory, coordinate work assignments and track crew productivity. It will also create the opportunity to have one call centre for all forestry service requests through one phone number city-wide. This would enable efficiencies of scale in administration, while at the same time, improve information response to the public with potential to better manage storm call situations and after hour emergencies. It would also enable better coordination with other civic departments. Changing over to a call centre approach would be a very significant undertaking which would occur over an extended period of time.

Benchmarks:

Tree maintenance requirements are variable over their life cycle. Similarly, resources required and productivity are affected by, among other things, the size and age of trees. Newly planted trees require frequent watering and training of branches in order to minimize future maintenance requirements. Established trees require infrequent pruning often most dictated by the requirement to shape the tree and maintain necessary clearances from the ground, signs, lights, etc. Mature trees require more frequent pruning as their health and structure start to decline.

Crew productivity is always an issue that we strive to maximize through use of proper machinery and technology to do any given task. Tree pruning requires the highest use of resources. Crew productivity is measured in number or diameter of trees serviced. Productivity is variable since many factors including proximity of trees to parked cars, moving traffic, buildings, hydro wires and other structures have direct bearing on how work is performed. This is extremely variable by area in the city.

The following tables illustrate these points and some standard benchmarks which enable management to evaluate effectiveness of crews and programs.

Currently, when urban forestry supervisors measure crew productivity, a concerted effort must be made to manually track statistics as no computerized maintenance management system exists for forestry services at this time. Such systems are on the forefront of the Parks and Recreation Division's agenda. Through the Year 2000 project mentioned above, while making our systems Y2K compatible, steps are being taken to consolidate six existing computerized tree management information systems into one system which will simplify statistical analysis for performance tracking.

Feasibility of Contracting Out:

Forestry continues to use contract crews for specialized work or, as funding permits, for limited contracts to do routine pruning and assist in eliminating the backlog. Presently there is one contract tree removal crew in the former City of Toronto and one pruning contract crew in former Etobicoke and East York.

Based on applying harmonized productivity standards, the current backlog of forestry service requests represents sufficient work for twelve fully equipped forestry crews of three persons per crew to work for one year at an approximate cost of $2.7 million.

Elimination of the current backlog will not be realized in house without extra funding. If funding is made available, contract crews would be used on a one time basis to aggressively reduce the backlog. Use of contract crews for eliminating backlogs is common practice when funds are available. Since the arboriculture industry is relatively small compared to many others, contracting multiple crews can drive prices up. Usually, contract crew prices are lower in the winter months than summer and, therefore, the best time for using contract crews is in the winter months. This is also a time that seasonal City staff are layed off and could be kept on for purposes of eliminating the backlog.

Conclusions:

The significance of the tree maintenance backlog has been identified as a specific target area for improvement. As outlined above, staff are currently working to unify services across the City while implementing best practices and work processes. All ideas which lead to improved work performance and productivity are implemented as soon as practically possible as restructuring takes place.

The current backlog is completely unacceptable to the public as evidenced by many complaint calls to our offices and Councillors. This backlog also eliminates the ability to use our work force on more productive systematic tree maintenance during winter months. It is our desire to take immediate steps to improve service to the public and increase productivity and tree care in the city and we respectively request capital funding to do this.

It is, therefore, recommended that additional funding of $1 million be made available in 1999 and $1.7 million in 2000 for forestry to aggressively pursue backlog reduction.

Contact Name:

Mr. Richard Ubbens, City Forester, 392-1894.

The Economic Development and Parks Committee also had before it a communication

(July 5, 1999) from Councillor Joe Pantalone:

Recommendation:

That the recommendation contained in Item14 be adopted and further that the Budget Committee report directly to the July 27, 1999 Toronto Council meeting on the source of the required funds.

Background:

As the Commissioner of Economic Development, Culture and Tourism outlines in Item 14, Toronto's ability to adequately maintain our Urban Forest is in need of urgent and immediate attention.

As well as detailing the current backlog in forestry operations for 1999, the report outlines what is needed to lower this staggering backlog and slow the alarming growth in the number of outstanding service calls. To site the example contained in Table 1, the citywide backlog for service and work orders has grown from 665 in 1997 to an incredible 5,018 in 1999. The 5,018 outstanding orders for 1999 represents a completion rate of only 54 per cent. The average wait for routine work in the four districts ranges from 10 to 13 months.

I think we all agree that this is an unacceptable level for a vital municipal service.

Due to the need to move quickly on this, it is imperative that the Budget Committee report to the July 27, 1999 meeting for Council. (Toronto Council's following meeting is not until September28, 1999 which would be too late for beginning to clear the backlog in 1999). I hope that the Committee will support this friendly amendment.

Unfortunately, I may be unable to attend this Committee meeting, as I am a member of the Planning and Transportation Committee that is meeting at the same time in Committee Room One. However, if the item is held I would appreciate if staff could contact me, so that I may speak on the report and recommendations.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.