Let \(c(H)\) denote the number of components of a graph \(H\). Win proved in \(1989\) that if a connected graph \(G\) satisfies
\[c(G \setminus S) \leq (k – 2)|S| + 2,\text{for every subset S of V(G)},\]
then \(G\) has a spanning tree with maximum degree at most \(k\).
For a spanning tree \(T\) of a connected graph, the \(k\)-excess of a vertex \(v\) is defined to be \(\max\{0, deg_T(v) – k\}\). The total \(k\)-excess \(te(T, k)\) is the summation of the \(k\)-excesses of all vertices, namely,
\[te(T, k) = \sum_{v \in V(T)} \max\{0, deg_T(v) – k\}.\]
This paper gives a sufficient condition for a graph to have a spanning tree with bounded total \(k\)-excess. Our main result is as follows.
Suppose \(k \geq 2\), \(b \geq 0\), and \(G\) is a connected graph satisfying the following condition:
\[\text{for every subset S of V(G)}, \quad c(G \setminus S) \leq (k – 2)|S| + 2+b.\]
Then, \(G\) has a spanning tree with total \(k\)-excess at most \(b\).