After many years of shooting down a citywide sales tax, Turlock voters approved Measure A in 2020. The ¾ city sales tax was estimated to provide $11 million in revenue annually to fund City of Turlock services by increasing the sales tax from 7.875 percent to 8.625 percent. This past fiscal year, Measure A brought in $8.378 million to city coffers.

The Turlock City Council at their Tuesday meeting received the annual Measure A report from finance director Isaac Moreno and Measure A Citizens Oversight Committee Chair Patrick Shields. The report itemized the year’s Measure A expenses and included feedback from Shields on presenting the information to the public in a more accessible format.

There were eight areas listed in the Measure A ordinance — “protect Turlock’s long-term financial stability, maintain and restore public safety services, rapid 911 emergency and medical response, fire protection, fix streets and potholes, support local businesses, address challenges with homelessness and vagrancy and protect Turlock’s ability to respond to emergencies and natural disasters.”

In 2021, the Council split the Measure A funds into two separate accounts — one for road repairs and maintenance and the other for everything else. 

The Turlock City Council and city staff credit Measure A for the roads program that has been slowly, but surely seeing the rehabilitation of many of Turlock’s streets.

The city spent 50.5% of Measure A revenues on the roads program, equating to $18.630 million.

The total Public Safety expenditures were 29% of the $36.8 million total spent in 2023-2024, but 59% of the total expenditures in Fund 118 Measure A – General.

The largest non-roads expenditures for the year were salaries for the police department ($4.014 million), General Fund Reserves ($3.363 million), fire services/support ($3.064 million), fire salaries ($2.980 million) and administrative salaries ($1.641 million).

“We have had a lot of robust discussion about the reports. We often have several questions and things like that as we’re going through the report. It is very common for us to ask Mr. Moreno a lot of detailed questions: How do we provide this information to the public?...He has done a great job presenting this information to us and sharing what it looks like and how it’s changing,” said Shields.

“We have a lot of discussion on where these monies are being spent and how they’re being spent. I know a lot of our discussion is about how much money we’re going to be going into debt to get these roads done and things of that nature…From my point of view, as chair of Measure A Committee, it’s been an extremely positive conversation to see what the city has done with this money and how we’re transitioning it to be in an intended policy platform moving forward,” Shields continued.