Council Puts Sales Tax Increase on June Ballot to Fund Fire Staffing

City Council voted Tuesday evening to place a sales tax measure before voters in June. The measure would increase the city's Measure Z sales tax from 1 percent to 1.25 percent and extend it indefinitely to fund fire department staffing and other fire, police and emergency needs.

The council voted unanimously to pass the measure out of several options – staff's recommendation, which was the option chosen, adding a new 0.25 percent sales tax independent of Measure Z, extending Measure Z and raising the hotel tax from 13 to 14 percent, doing some combination of these options or choosing none. The fire department recommended extending Measure Z indefinitely because it has to do with funding staff.

Measure Z, the city's existing one-percent general sales tax approved in 2016, currently generates more than $80 million per year – nearly twice its initial projections – and is primarily used for boosting fire, police and other key city services.

However, the Riverside Fire Department's master plan, published December 2025, reported the department currently operates with 225 firefighters – a ratio of 0.69 per 1,000 residents compared to a national standard of 1.35. Reaching that standard would require the city to hire 84 new firefighters at $26.1 million annual cost.

Measure Z funds are already fully committed through 2028, which is why city leaders say an extra sales tax could be necessary to address additional city needs.

"No one should fear not getting public safety there in time," said Councilmember Chuck Condor. "We don't sell public safety, we provide it, and to provide that level that we need, that they deserve, we have to have resources, we have to have manpower."

Though she ultimately voted in favor of the measure, Councilmember Clarissa Cervantes expressed concern for "tax fatigue" among residents. However, she said she was glad to see the tax doesn't apply to things like groceries, gas or prescription medicine.

"I recognize the urgency for us to assure that we can move forward with this item, despite the challenging conversation in the state of the economy that we're living in," she said. "And I was really happy to see that if it was approved by voters, that tax wouldn't affect critical issues and items that we need every day, medicine, groceries, gas, medical devices. That brings me some little bit of comfort."

In a Feb. 16 op-ed for the Gazette, former city councilmember Mike Gardner wrote in support of the quarter-cent sales tax, arguing it can address short-term fire department needs and provides an ongoing revenue stream.

"The goal for a fire department response is six minutes from dispatch to arrival on scene," Gardner wrote. "In 2025 the Riverside average was seven minutes, 38 seconds, an increase of over 4% just since 2024. This extended time is critical for a patient who is not breathing or bleeding badly. House fires double in size about once every minute. Current response times mean a fire may increase more than one and a half times in size before a response arrives compared to the goal."

Gardner called the fire staffing a "critical need."

"No one, myself included, likes taxes, but this is a critical need that we must address," Gardner wrote. "I will gladly pay 1.25 percent extra sales tax to address this issue. That is $1.25 on a $100 purchase. I hope I never need a fire department response, but if I do, I want them to get there with the proper equipment in time to help me."

Residents opposing the measure expressed "tax fatigue," also saying they disapproved of how the city has spent Measure Z funds since 2016.

Ward 1 resident Jason Hunter said the fact that the Measure Z funds will go into the city's general funds before it's able to go to emergency departments could mean that the city spends resident's tax dollars "on anything."

"What did our elected officials with the recommendation of staff spend it on? Well, I'll tell the public—unearned raises for staff, pension bonds, a new library and many other things that were never discussed before the passage of Measure Z," Hunter said. "We will absolutely get bait-and-switched again, because there will be no controls on how the money is spent."

Hunter said if residents "want to actually boost and buff up public safety, [they] have to get a special tax passed, not a general tax, like what is being proposed."

Resident Aurora Chavez echoed these sentiments.

"We trust our fire department to do a good job, and that's why we voted that way," Chavez said. "What we didn't vote for was for the city to put their fingers into the pie of the firefighter fund, [or to] our first responders fund for things like pickleball or other things that the city needed. That money was supposed to go to our fire department, our first responders. That's what we voted for."

The ballot measure will go before Riverside voters on June 2.

By Micaela Ricaforte