Montgomery County residents voted to kill the suburb’s new ambulance fee, voting down County Executive Ike Leggett’s contentious plan to raise millions of dollars each year for the cash-strapped jurisdiction.
With two-thirds of precincts reporting, more than 54 percent of voters rejected the fee.
Leggett said he wasn’t surprised with the results.
“It’s an ingrained mind-set,” the county executive said about detractors of the fee. “When people are confused, they just vote for the status quo.”
Now county officials will need to find roughly $12.5 million to fill the budget gap created in the fee’s absence.
Leggett has said the county would cut nearly one of every 10 firefighters if voters rejected the fee, remove police officers from schools, and reduce services for seniors and the homeless. However, some Montgomery County Council members said they would never approve such a drastic plan.
The debate has consumed Montgomery’s otherwise routine election cycle and pitted volunteer firefighters — who sued the county for using taxpayer dollars for ambulance fee promotion — against career firefighters — who could be laid off to make up for the lost ambulance fee revenue.
Both groups of firefighters flocked to polling stations Tuesday, and some voters complained their presence was intimidating.
Critics said the measure, which would have charged insurance companies between $300 and $800 for an ambulance ride, would have deterred residents from calling 911 and would have caused insurance premiums to rise as insurers squeezed customers to restore their bottom lines.
Leggett argued that county residents wouldn’t be billed for the service, but failed to convince enough voters.
“I don’t want people to avoid the ambulance because they are afraid about what they would have to pay,” said Joe Forst, of Rockville, before voting against the fee at Richard Montgomery High School. “This is just one of those things I think the government should provide.”
Uninsured residents weren’t required to pay the fee.
Volunteer firefighters, who gathered more than 50,000 signatures against the fee, were thrilled with the outcome.
“It allowed the voters to speak,” said Eric Bernard, executive director for the volunteers. “That’s all we asked for.”
Leggett, who has championed the fee for years, said he would “abide by the will of the people” and not push for the charge again.
