The Montgomery County Council is expected to hear public comment Tuesday on a bill that would go further on their mandate that all county employees get the COVID-19 vaccine. The bill is one of the first in the region that would either require county employees to get vaccinated, apply for a medical exemption, or leave their jobs. Currently, non-vaccinated employees can submit to weekly testing or file a medical exemption.

The public is invited to weigh in virtually at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, October 19.

The bill is receiving pushback from County Executive Marc Elrich and some unions representing county employees. The main opposition is from the unions representing fire, police, and corrections employees, with some asking the county to keep the testing option. At the end of the summer, the county required all employees to submit proof of vaccination by Sept. 18 or apply for a religious or medical exemption. At least 79% of the more than 9,400 county employees reported that they are either partially or fully vaccinated, according to county health department data. A little over 7% of county employees have reported not being vaccinated for either medical or religious reasons. Those working in fire and rescue, police, and corrections departments have some of the lowest vaccination reporting rates in the county, and those employees also have among the lowest percentage of employees vaccinated, according to county data.

The county council’s bill would give employees seven days notice from the bill’s effective date to either show proof of full vaccination or apply for a medical exemption. There are no religious exemptions written into the bill. After that time, an employee would be placed on unpaid leave and have 40 days to provide proof of being fully vaccinated or apply for a medical exemption. Any employee who fails to comply would be required to leave their job.

Councilmembers Hans Reimer and Will Jawando introduced the legislation late last month.

“[The] county executive is not getting the job done getting county employees vaccinated,” Reimer, who’s running for Elrich’s seat in next year’s election, told DCist/WAMU in an interview. “It’s going to be one of the tools that’s necessary to get COVID under control.”

Opposition to the mandate

Elrich told reporters in a press conference earlier this month he wasn’t opposed to vaccine mandates and said “all employees should be vaccinated, but I think the legislation was premature,” because the county is still collecting information on how the legislation would affect the workforce–especially police officers, firefighters, and correctional officers, departments that have faced staffing and retention challenges.

“But if we’re not able to staff the jail fully, if we’re not able to fully staff fire and rescue services…and we can’t staff police, then we run the risk of serious consequences,” Elrich said. “As long as there are different [vaccination] policies in different jurisdictions, employees could leave work because they don’t want to get vaccinated and find a job someplace else.”

A measure in the bill currently says the mandate would not be subject to collective bargaining. That doesn’t sit right with the unions mentioned earlier.  Gino Renne, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1994, the county’s union representing correctional officers and the sheriff’s office, says his union is opposed to the mandate without an option for testing.

“We have a clear difference of opinion on how we move the majority of the workforce toward appreciating the value of the vaccinations,” Renne told DCist/WAMU. “The dispute is not over the vaccinations…we accept the science; however, just like society at large, we have groups within the members that oppose vaccinations for whatever reasons.”

Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, unions representing police, fire and rescue, and corrections have been collecting information on how many of their workers would leave or retire should this bill become law.

The fire and police departments are also having recruitment and retention issues. Between June 1 and Oct. 3 of this year, the county’s International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1664 reports they’ve had more than 1,500 hours of involuntary overtime–that’s more than three times the number of hours they had in all of 2019. Jeff Buddle, president of the IAFF union, says with 70 fire fighters currently on leave due to injuries on the job–which is typical–and more than 230 out of 1185 fire fighters eligible to retire, he’s concerned about staffing shortages and the effect on emergency response times. Current response times average between four to six minutes in urban and suburban areas of the county, according to the department.

“Burnout is a real thing,” Buddle told DCist/WAMU. “With 70 fire fighters out and those that could retire alone, service delivery to the public will result in increased response times.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the police department has lost 67 officers out of the force’s 1300 members, and according to Lee Holland, president of the county’s Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 35, a vaccine mandate could worsen the problem. He says based on a recent survey of their members, at least 390 officers say they would consider leaving, retiring, or waiting to be terminated if the vaccine mandate goes into effect.

Holland also points to a potential public safety issue; he notes that current emergency response times currently averaging around 8 minutes, would likely go up. “It will definitely increase response times to more than eight minutes,” Holland said.

And, Holland says recruitment isn’t keeping pace with those who are leaving the profession.

“Our recruiting numbers are drastically low. We’re getting 300 recruits for a class when we used to get thousands,” he said. “But the people who are going to walk out the door are experienced.”

“The morale here is terrible,” Holland added. He pointed to some reasons. There were the risks of working as frontline workers during the height of the COVID pandemic. Also, police reform, including the passage of Anton’s Law, a measure passed by Maryland lawmakers which went into effect Oct. 1 declassifies police disciplinary records, among other things. And the force has some of the lowest salaries in the region, especially when compared with federal law enforcement agencies like Secret Service, Park Police and the Department of Homeland Security.

Renne says instead of a stricter vaccine mandate, he’d like to see a combination of measures used to prevent the spread of COVID in the workforce, including masks, testing, and vaccines.

But Councilmember Hans Reimer says those pushing against the vaccine mandate amount to “anti-vaxers and hardcore COVID deniers.”

The three unions point to what they say potentially constitutes a conflict of interest. Reimer’s wife, Angela Reimer, is vice president of federal government relations for Pfizer, which manufactures one of the three COVID-19 vaccines.

Union representatives Jeff Buddle with fire and rescue, Holland, and Renne wrote in a press release, “the public deserves to know the extent of [Reimer’s] connection to [Pfizer] and any possible conflicts of interest that may arise.”

Reimer called the statement “preposterous,” and says he followed all disclosure requirements. Reimer’s financial disclosure statement says his family purchased stock in Pfizer in March 2017 valued between $50,001 and $100,000. Critics are asking Reimer to disclose how much the stock is worth now.

On Monday, the county’s ethics commission wrote in a statement that the county’s vaccine policy “does not prohibit [Reimer] from participating in matters relating to whether the county should impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.”

Elsewhere in the region, battles over vaccine mandates haven’t been as divisive.

Most localities in the region have already mandated the vaccine with a testing option and/or medical and religious exemptions for their employees, including the District, Prince George’s County, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, and Loudoun counties. But if Montgomery County’s mandate passes, it would be the strictest in the region.

But in Virginia, the Leesburg Town Council last week backed away from a mandate similar to Montgomery County’s, instead approving a mandate in line with the rest of the region. Councilmembers shifted after concerns were raised about losing police officers if the tougher vaccine rules were put in place.