Rochester Hills homeowners will pay more on their tax bills after voters approved a fire department millage increase Tuesday by a wide margin.

The measure passed with 71.45% voting yes and 28.55% voting no, according to Detroit Free Press results. The charter amendment raises the city's authorized fire millage ceiling from 3 mills to 3.5 mills with no expiration date.

For a homeowner with a taxable value of $200,000, the half-mill increase adds $100 per year to their property tax bill. The new revenue is estimated to generate about $5 million in its first year.

The money will fund 12 new firefighter/paramedic positions, a second around-the-clock ambulance and additional capital for large equipment purchases like fire trucks.

Fire Chief Todd Gary made the staffing case in a July 29 Fox 2 Detroit interview: "We had a house fire over the weekend and we were relying on other communities to provide service for us during that time. We had numerous calls at the scene of that fire, and we had four different communities responding for us."

The department's staffing assessment, which we detailed before the vote, backed him up. Rochester Hills firefighters handled 9,212 calls in 2025 and ran out of available units 224 times. The department was fully staffed only 2.7% of the time last year, and call volumes have jumped nearly 39% over the past decade.

The result stood out across Oakland County, where voters rejected multiple other public safety millages on the same ballot, including fire and police proposals in Orion Township, Waterford Township, Independence Township, Brandon Township and Highland Township.

Rochester Hills had not raised its fire millage in 10 years. The previously authorized 3-mill rate had already been rolled back by the Headlee Amendment to 2.7798 mills before Tuesday's vote.

Results are unofficial pending the county canvass. The city council will set the actual levy rate annually, up to the newly authorized 3.5-mill ceiling.