Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett wants to impose an ambulance fee on county residents identical to the one voters rejected at the polls less than two years ago. Leggett claims emergency services will suffer without the added levy, which would charge residents’ insurance companies between $300 and $800 for the same ambulance ride now covered by their tax dollars. But Councilman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg, one of four County Council members who voted against the ambulance fee the first time around, saw right through Leggett’s ploy, calling it “an end-run around the voters and the council.”

If Leggett needs more money for emergency services, he should start by clamping down on the outrageous amount of overtime currently paid to employees in Fire and Rescue, Police, Corrections and Transportation Departments. As The Examiner’s Rachel Baye reported in Sunday’s cover story, these four departments alone paid $36.5 million in overtime last year, exceeding their budgeted amount by nearly one-third. In the first half of the current fiscal year, they’ve already spent $20.7 million, or 73 percent of the year’s overtime budget.