Measure Z, Explained: The Sales Tax Increase on Riverside's June Ballot
Voters will decide June 2 whether to raise the existing Measure Z sales tax to 1.25 percent and remove its 2036 sunset. Here's what's on the ballot, why it's there, and what each side is arguing.
Measure Z — the city's existing one-percent sales tax, approved by voters in 2016 — is on the ballot again. This time the City Council is asking voters to raise it to 1.25 percent and remove the 2036 sunset that would otherwise end the tax in a decade. The increase would generate roughly $106 million a year, up from the more than $80 million the existing tax now produces.
The measure was placed on the ballot March 3 in response to a January warning from Fire Chief Steve McKinster that the city's fire department had fallen behind its growing call volume and could not catch up without new revenue. By April 1, a Superior Court judge had ordered the city to change both the measure's title and parts of its ballot question, finding the original wording misleading.
What's on the ballot
The court-ordered ballot title now reads "City of Riverside Voter-Approved Transaction and Use Tax Renewal Measure." The full ballot question reads:
To fund general local city services such as 911, fire, police response; preparing for wildfires; recruiting/retaining well-trained firefighters/paramedics; preventing crime; keeping public areas safe/clean; addressing homelessness; repairing potholes/roads; shall a measure renewing the existing City of Riverside voter-approved transaction and use (sales) tax at an updated 1¼¢ rate, providing approximately $106,000,000 annually until ended by voters, subject to audits, spending disclosure, all funds controlled locally, be adopted?
The tax does not apply to groceries, prescription medicine, gas or medical devices.
A "yes" vote raises the existing Measure Z sales tax from 1 percent to 1.25 percent and removes its 2036 sunset, allowing it to continue until ended by voters. A "no" vote leaves the existing 1 percent tax in place, set to expire in 2036.
One structural detail matters for understanding the debate that follows: Measure Z is a general tax, not a special tax. Revenue flows into the city's general fund and is not legally restricted to any specific service category, even though the ballot question lists fire, police, wildfire preparation and other services by name.
Why it's on the ballot
On Jan. 13, Fire Chief Steve McKinster told the City Council the department is "increasingly strained" by rising calls and stagnant staffing, presenting a 550-page master plan that laid out the gap.
Riverside staffs 0.69 firefighters per 1,000 residents — the lowest among peer cities AP Triton, the Wyoming-based consultant who prepared the plan, examined, and below the 0.95 ratio the plan recommends. The department has held at 225 firefighters for seven years, even as calls for service have risen 26 percent since the last staffing increase in 2018 and 72 percent since the city's last new fire station opened in 2007. Average emergency response time has climbed to 7 minutes, 18 seconds — well over the department's 6-minute goal.
"Fire departments do not fail all at once. They fall behind slowly," McKinster told the council. "If we do not act, we will not be able to meet the level of service the community expects and deserves."
The plan calls for adding 84 firefighters and, in Phase 1, rebuilding or relocating four stations and constructing new stations in Wards 1 and 4 — at $26.1 million annually. Existing Measure Z revenue is fully committed through 2028.
On March 3, the council voted unanimously to place a sales tax increase on the June ballot, choosing the staff recommendation over alternatives that included a new independent quarter-cent tax, a hotel-tax increase or some combination. The fire department had recommended extending Measure Z indefinitely.
The Case For
Supporters argue the measure would close the staffing and station gap McKinster described.
Former Councilmember Mike Gardner, who writes a monthly column for the Gazette, argued in February that rising response times have measurable consequences in cardiac and fire emergencies. Brain injury from cardiac arrest begins at four to six minutes without oxygen. Structure fires roughly double in size every minute.
"No one, myself included, likes taxes, but this is a critical need that we must address. We cannot continue to see response times lengthen, to be understaffed, and hope we don't have a big wildfire like Los Angeles recently had," 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."
Council members supporting the measure echoed those concerns. Councilmember Chuck Conder, a heart attack survivor who credits a fast response from Station 9, told the March 3 meeting: "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."
The Riverside City Firefighters Association has supported the measure publicly. At the January council meeting, Association President Mike Detoy told the council, "This isn't a future problem. It's happening right now. Dedication is not a strategy."
The Case Against
Opponents have raised two concerns: spending accountability and ballot transparency.
At the March 3 council meeting, Ward 1 resident Jason Hunter argued that because Measure Z revenue enters the city's general fund rather than a dedicated emergency-services fund, there is no legal guarantee any new revenue will reach the fire department. Hunter pointed to past Measure Z spending on pension bonds, employee raises and a new library — uses he said were not disclosed to voters in 2016.
"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 told the council. "We will absolutely get bait-and-switched again, because there will be no controls on how the money is spent."
Hunter argued that residents who genuinely want to fund public safety should demand a special tax, which carries legal restrictions a general tax does not.
Resident Aurora Chavez echoed the concern at the same meeting, saying voters in 2016 trusted the city to spend Measure Z revenue on first responders. "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."
Hunter then sued. On April 1, Superior Court Judge Daniel Ottolia ordered the city to rewrite the title and parts of the question, finding the original misleading. The ruling required the city to drop the title "City of Riverside Services Renewal Measure" in favor of the current title identifying the measure as a sales tax. It also replaced the verbs "continue maintaining" with "fund" and "requiring" with "subject to" in the question itself.
"The law requires ballot titles and summaries to not be false, misleading, nor partial to one side," Hunter said after the ruling. "Riverside's City Attorney's Office and City Council were found to have violated that guarantee to the public."
The city defended its original wording. Senior Deputy City Attorney Ruthann Salera argued the title and summary were meant to be read together. Judge Ottolia disagreed, calling Hunter's proposed title "more accurate."
Ballots are now in the mail. Voters can return them by mail (with the city advising mailing no later than May 27 due to USPS delivery concerns), drop them at a county drop box or vote in person at any Riverside County vote center beginning May 23. Election Day is June 2. Voters can check registration status, request a vote-by-mail ballot or find a vote center through the City Clerk's voter resources page.
The council reviewed Futrell's performance in closed session Tuesday but took no action, as the city manager publicly defended himself and his wife against allegations that have roiled City Hall since December.
