Four Montgomery County Council members vowed to vote against ambulance fees Tuesday, challenging fellow Democrat and County Executive Ike Leggett who says charging for ambulance use would generate much-needed revenue for the county fire department.
The council is still one vote shy of what’s needed to kill the surcharge, but there is enough opposition that it is impossible for Leggett to get the council support necessary to put the fees in place immediately.
Last spring, Leggett recommended charging fees ranging from $300 to $800 per ambulance trip, plus $7.50 per mile traveled.
He maintains the bills for transporting residents would go directly to insurance companies and no person who lives in Montgomery County would ever be charged for service. People who live outside the jurisdiction, however, would be billed.
Fairfax County, the District and Prince George’s County all have already implemented a fee, and Leggett has argued the county is passing up $12 million to $14 million a year in revenue by not creating a fee of its own. Montgomery County’s volunteer firefighters have said ambulance fees would make people hesitant to call 911 and damage their morale by charging for services they provide for free.
More than 1,200 residents have flooded county council offices with phone calls, most of whom oppose the bill. In late October, a panel of council members voted to table the ambulance fee, but Leggett and his aides have continued to press the issue, highlighting the county’s roughly $251 million budget deficit for the next fiscal year. Nonetheless, Council Vice President Phil Andrews, along with council members Valerie Ervin, Duchy Trachtenberg and Roger Berliner, said Tuesday they would vote against the fee.
“During the current fiscal crisis, we can’t turn our back on public safety,” Ervin said. “The four of us here, we know we’re not very popular with the county executive and his team right now.”
Andrews unveiled a counterproposal backed by a majority of the council Tuesday in which the county would take half the money it receives from a fledgling speed camera fine program and put it toward paying for fire and rescue equipment.
Leggett said that money has already been set aside for other programs, and the proposal would increase budget problems.
