INVESTIGATES: Jacksonville’s Tree Fund making changes to take $34M to put more trees in the ground

An Action News Jax investigation has led to major changes to the way the city plants trees across town. It started more than two months ago with a request about the city’s tree fund, an account developers pay into when they cut down a tree.

Action News Jax put that request in back in July and the data showed a lot more could be done at the city level to beautify Jacksonville. In the wake of that request, the city said it plans to spend more money, planting more trees and created a new transparency page to prove it.

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The Tree Fund was started in 2000 by the city. For every tree chopped during construction, developers pay into the account to fund planting a new one.

Except Action News Jax pulled records that show the Tree Fund has been putting more money in the bank than trees in the ground over the last several years. The account has more than $34 million in it ($34,767,107) while those same records show the pace of reforestation has been excruciatingly slow.

Nine weeks after Action News put that records request in, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan is making changes.

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“I just want to start seeing progress at a pace that that, to me, makes sense when you’ve got that much money sitting there,” she said.

Despite all the available cash, records show only about 15,196 trees have been planted in the last seven years. So far this year, the city is only about halfway to its tree-planting goal.

Deegan wants to make up for lost time -- and trees.

“We’ve got plans,” Deegan said. “The plans are there. What we need to do is approve those plans and move to get those trees in the ground.”

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There’s a Tree Commission in charge of making sure that happens. At its meeting this week, Deegan expanded the way they can spend Tree Fund money, with plans to include staffing, maintenance, and technology in that.

Deegan recognized the problem.

“Bureaucracy is not all bad,” she said. “But it also really doesn’t need to be as slow as it is. So we just need to take the really great work that this Commission has already done and help them have the tools to move things forward a little faster.”

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Since Action News Jax submitted its records request, the city also launched its Tree Planting transparency page.

It shows how many trees have been planted, where they are, and how much money has been spent. The Urban Forestry website includes information about how people can request trees be planted in their neighborhoods and what nonprofits can do to help.

Deegan also announced her plans for an Urban Forestry Plan to create a comprehensive approach to how and where those Tree Fund dollars are spent.

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