Forgot about that simple timing technique. 
Ran each test -1, -30, and -100 on its own 3 times. Based upon the results it's my opinion that the startDate does not impact the DB fetch time in my situation, max: 1 event returned
2019-04-12 15:51:36.693 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:51:36.692 debugdate - 100 took 37 msecs
2019-04-12 15:51:36.653 debugtestapp init
2019-04-12 15:51:15.137 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:51:15.135 debugdate - 100 took 23 msecs
2019-04-12 15:51:15.112 debugtestapp init
2019-04-12 15:50:57.059 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:50:57.057 debugdate - 100 took 47 msecs
2019-04-12 15:50:57.009 debugtestapp init
2019-04-12 15:49:25.222 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:49:25.220 debugdate - 30 took 26 msecs
2019-04-12 15:49:25.195 debugtestapp init
2019-04-12 15:49:08.614 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:49:08.613 debugdate - 30 took 33 msecs
2019-04-12 15:49:08.580 debugtestapp init
2019-04-12 15:48:51.131 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:48:51.129 debugdate - 30 took 19 msecs
2019-04-12 15:48:51.109 debugtestapp init
2019-04-12 15:58:38.540 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:58:38.538 debugdate - 1 took 32 msecs
2019-04-12 15:58:38.505 debugtestapp init
2019-04-12 15:58:18.770 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:58:18.768 debugdate - 1 took 31 msecs
2019-04-12 15:58:18.736 debugtestapp init
2019-04-12 15:57:59.662 debugtestapp done
2019-04-12 15:57:59.660 debugdate - 1 took 33 msecs
2019-04-12 15:57:59.625 debugtestapp init