By David Madrid | The Arizona Republic
Tolleson narrowly dodged a fiscal bullet this week when a ballot proposition that allows local leaders to control the city budget passed by two votes.
Wednesday, Proposition 458, which is known as home rule, was losing by eight votes, according to unofficial election results from Tuesday’s election. Final numbers late Wednesday showed the proposition winning 194 votes to 192.
Under the state alternative expenditure limitation law, if the proposition had failed, that would have forced the city to operate under its 1980 level of services based on Tolleson’s 1978 population of 4,190.
“We pulled it off, man,” a relieved Tolleson Mayor Adolfo Gamez said Thursday. “Lesson learned. We have to be more assertive in terms of communicating what this is all about, how it works and the negative impact it can have on our community.”
Without home rule, the city would have been subject to the projected state-imposed limit of about $13.5 million in each of the next two fiscal years, and about $14.5 million in the following two fiscal years.
