It was a simple solution to a simple problem. Or so Comptroller Bill Henry thought.

One-fifth of the city’s solid waste workers were without health insurance, Inspector General Isabel Mercedes Cumming revealed in a report last fall. The employees, who collect the city’s trash and are among Baltimore’s lowest paid, failed to enroll in the benefit, most unaware that it was even an option, Cumming wrote.

In June, Henry introduced what he believed to be a fix: a resolution to be considered by the city’s spending board that would automatically enroll its roughly 13,500 employees in Baltimore’s cheapest health insurance option. The employees would have the ability to opt out, Henry’s resolution stipulated.

They could also apply for a waiver credit, offered to employees who get their health insurance elsewhere. Henry’s proposal set a $5,000 minimum, leaving the door open for city unions to bargain for more.

“This is as about as straightforward of an example as you can get of how the inspector general’s office is supposed to work,” Henry said this week. “She identified a problem; a member of the Board of Estimates read the report and started working on a policy solution for it.”

But it’s not that easy in Baltimore.

On Wednesday, the Board of Estimates narrowly rejected Henry’s plan. After more than a month of deferrals and behind-the-scenes conversations, the three mayor-appointed members of the five-member board voted against the proposal.

Their reasons were numerous. The resolution as drafted conflicted with the city’s efforts to bargain with union employees, Faith Leach, the administrator who sat in for Mayor Brandon Scott on Wednesday, argued. The proposal would also cost the city unforeseen funds, she said. It would overstep the board’s power. Lastly, the plan was a solution to a problem that didn’t really exist. After all, most city employees are enrolled in health insurance, she argued.

Anticipating that reaction, Henry set about rebutting Leach’s points. The city budgets about $14,000 per employee for the cost of benefits each year, he said. That money would be enough to cover insurance for each or the waiver if they chose to apply for it.

If the Board of Estimates isn’t the correct venue for such a change, what would be the appropriate forum, Henry questioned. He noted the city’s Law Department had approved his resolution for “form and legal sufficiency,” a designation the office does not award if the resolution violates city law.

“Yes, legally, it could be done,” conceded city Solicitor Ebony Thompson, another of the three mayoral appointees to the board. It was a question of whether the administration wanted to make the move as it was negotiating contracts with virtually all of the city’s unions, she said.

“The administration has the ability to say, ‘Do I want to make this decision now?’” she said.

Those contract negotiations, which have been underway for months, proved to be a sticking point for Leach. She argued the minimum waiver credit that Henry aimed to create was an infringement upon a topic that was clearly available for city unions to bargain over. Currently, different unions representing employees offer different credits. Some are as high as $2,500. Other unions offer no credit.

Setting a floor for the credits wouldn’t prevent city unions from bargaining for more, Henry argued, but he ultimately conceded on the issue, offering an amendment to withdraw that portion of the plan. Council Vice President Sharon Green Middleton, who attended Wednesday’s meeting in President Zeke Cohen’s stead, was the amendment’s only backer besides Henry.

“In my eyes, a resolution is basically bringing awareness that there is some sort of problem and there is a need,” she said. “I basically don’t see a problem.”

The amendment failed by a vote of 2-to-3, with the mayoral contingent casting the three votes against.

The Department of Public Works, which oversees the city’s solid waste employees, has made great strides to enroll its staff in insurance, said Matthew Garbark, a board member and the city’s acting director of the department. Of the 135 people identified in Cumming’s report, 131 have been enrolled, he said.

Citywide, fewer than 5% of city employees fail to enroll in benefits, Leach argued. “I want to be clear with the public for the problem we are solving for,” she said.

That’s not the point, argued Cumming, who was not present for Wednesday’s discussion. The report showed the city’s manual laborers, who work on the front lines rather than behind desks, were susceptible to being overlooked for insurance, she said. The investigation looked only at the Department of Public Works, but other such groups of employees in the Department of Transportation and the Department of General Services would also be vulnerable, she said.

“I am deeply disappointed,” Cumming said of the board’s decision.

With the measure defeated, Henry retreated to his office to reflect on the decision he knew was coming. The comptroller said he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to take a second shot once the current round of bargaining was complete. Bargaining for a city government never truly comes to an end, he said.

Henry said he couldn’t shake the feeling that members of the administration were rejecting a good idea simply because it was not theirs.

“This whole thing was such a straightforward, commonsense thing,” he said. “There’s no real answer that makes sense.”