![\"City](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/tos-l-orlando-counting-trees-12-4.jpg\")
City of Orlando worker David Kelly cuts through a limb on a decaying oak tree that he and a crew are felling in the Ivanhoe area of Orlando on Wednesday, December 17, 2025. (Rich Pope\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\nFlorida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia blasted several line items in Orlando\u2019s budget as \u201cwasteful\u201d spending, but by far the largest was $450,000 to count its trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe they\u2019re trying to find the money tree? Oh, they already found it \u2013 it\u2019s you the taxpayers,\u201d Ingoglia said in October, a criticism that has been repeatedly and widely spread on social media.<\/p>\n
But city officials contend the real story is different than Ingoglia\u2019s snarky narrative: The count was a good investment, they say, and it wasn\u2019t paid for by local taxpayer money at all \u2014 most of it came from permit fees paid by developers, and a good chunk of it came from the state itself.<\/p>\n
Orlando oversees more than 110,000 trees, which shade its parks, line its streets and soak up rain, but also require trimming and pruning to keep them healthy and out of power lines and removing diseased or decaying trees before they topple in a hurricane at the city\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n
Over the past four years, Orlando has created a detailed database on each of its trees: its location, species, height, width, age and health.<\/p>\n
While Ingoglia and Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed the hefty pricetag for the count as part of their quest to abolish property taxes on properties with a homestead exemption, Orlando officials said it ultimately saved taxpayers money.<\/p>\n
It allowed the city to identify problems ahead of time, better manage crews who maintain the trees and prevent costly insurance payouts or lawsuits if a decaying tree were to fall on a vehicle or a person.<\/p>\n
The state that awarded the city three grants totaling $70,000, with the balance paid for with a pool of money called the Street Tree Trust. That trust is funded by permit fees paid by developers who want to cut down trees as part of their construction.<\/p>\n
The count was completed by certified arborists in July, one year ahead of schedule of about $50,000 below budget, a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Among the trees counted were 34,702 live oaks, 18,839 crape myrtles and 11,276 sabal palms.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny tree that is on public property is the city\u2019s responsibility,\u201d said Lisa Early, Orlando\u2019s Families, Parks and Recreation Director. \u201cAny tree that looks like its getting sick or its branches are getting too low \u2026 we need to know all of that stuff so we can plan how to manage public trees.\u201d<\/p>\n
City of Orlando worker David Kelly cuts through a limb on a decaying oak tree that he and a crew are felling in the Ivanhoe area of Orlando on Wednesday, December 17, 2025. (Rich Pope\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n
Nina Bassuk, a professor emeritus and founder of Cornell\u2019s Urban Horticulture Institute, said cities across the country, big and small, do inventories to mange their urban forest.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do it to decrease the risk and cost of tree branch failures,\u201d she said. \u201cCities do the inventories to create a master plan to mange the trees and create the best benefits for the population. It\u2019s not just counting trees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winter Park completed a similar survey in 2016, counting 25,000 trees in the city\u2019s right-of-way and more than 75,000 total on public and private property. Its count was funded by $60,000 in grants from the U.S. Forest Service and $60,000 in city dollars.<\/p>\n
Orlando\u2019s inventory comes as the city was this year awarded with a Tree City USA designation by the Arbor Day Foundation for the 49th year in a row. It also comes as city officials are attempting to bolster the city\u2019s tree canopy with more mature trees, hoping to increase the percentage of the city covered from about 30% to 40% by 2040.<\/p>\n
Among the ways they\u2019re pursuing that is through a free street tree\u00a0program, where residents can order trees like American Sycamore, Nuttall Oak, Holly and Tabebuia to be delivered to their home for free. So far this year, the city has delivered 717 free trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cTree canopy provides a lot of things for us,\u201d said Brad Radecki, Orlando\u2019s inventory coordinator. \u201cFrom the simple stuff like shade, it reduces the temperature of the ground, which reduces the need to run your air conditioner. We do have to plan more trees, but we also have to give those trees more time to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia blasted several line items in Orlando\u2019s budget as \u201cwasteful\u201d spending, but by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92343,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1563,28,114,266,115,1335,139,141,140,109],"class_list":{"0":"post-92342","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-orlando","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-local-news","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-orange-county","14":"tag-orlando","15":"tag-orlando-headlines","16":"tag-orlando-news","17":"tag-social"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}