Voters favoring measure to increase city’s spending limit

Initiative will boost annual expenditures from $25.6M to $33M

Eastvale voters favored giving their city government the green light to spend more money, in early returns from a special election Tuesday.

On the ballot was Measure A, which sought to boost the city’s annual spending limit from $25.6 million to $33 million.

The Riverside County Registrar of Voters, in initial returns posted shortly after polls closed at 8 p.m., reported 2,757 yes and 572 no votes. A simple majority is required for passage.

Measure A, which will expire after four years, wasn’t about raising taxes. Rather, it was about raising Eastvale’s Gann Limit, or spending ceiling.

Eastvale put the question before voters because next year the city could exceed its limit for the first time and not be permitted to spend all the tax dollars it takes in, a city official has said.

Measure supporters say the current limit, were it to remain in place, would prevent Eastvale from keeping pace with the demand for police and fire protection and other services in the young, fast-growing city of 73,000.

A watchdog group, Transparent Eastvale, objected to the issue being scheduled for a special election, which typically does not attract as many voters as a general election. The group also said the city could do a better job holding down expenses.

Backers argued that the city’s spending ceiling was set artificially low in 2012, shortly after incorporation in 2010, because it was established after Sacramento took millions in revenue away from Eastvale and other cities. The lost vehicle license fee

revenue has since been restored. But supporters say the ceiling needs to be reset because it did not factor in that source or that the city would lure hotels, stores and restaurants that generate tax dollars.

The Gann Limit was established by passage of a statewide initiative in 1979, shortly after Californians adopted tax-slashing Proposition 13 and each city has a spending ceiling. Such ceilings are adjusted annually according to a formula tied to inflation and population growth.