Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

NATCHEZ — An Adams County volunteer firefighter told the Adams County Board of Supervisors the group is unhappy with the county’s agreement with the City of Natchez to provide fire protection in the county.

Instead, the volunteers want to use money currently paid by the county to the city for fire protection to bolster the county’s volunteer fire department.

Everard Baker, who said he has worked with three volunteer fire departments and has 18 years of structure firefighting experience and was employed by the Mississippi Forestry Commission for 33 years, said he was on behalf of the Adams County Volunteer Firefighters Association. Baker listed a number of issues he said the volunteers have with working with the City of Natchez Fire Department to fight fires in Adams County.

The county has contracted with the City of Natchez to provide fire protection for the county since 1994. In 2024, the county and city negotiated a new contract for fire protection in the county that continues through 2028.

Baker asked supervisors how much the county was paying the city for fire protection.

“How much money was committed to this document? Nowhere in this document does it state a total dollar amount. It is our understanding that this comes from county insurance rebate money, which is legal to use it for, but did you know that the city also gets insurance rebate money? It is hard for me to believe that this board, as business people, agreed to a document that committed four years of payments to the city that was open-ended with no dollar amount in it,” Baker said.

When the city and county negotiated the new fire contract in July 2024, it did so while also negotiating the city’s involvement in the funding of the Morgantown Road improvement project and the city and county’s emergency dispatch services.

At that time, the city announced it was forgoing its project to raise Silver Street under the hill and would divert eligible funds from that project to Morgantown Road.

The city also agreed to increase its payment to E-911 by $200,000, from $292,404 to $492,214.85 per year.

For its part, the county agreed to pay the city $989,992.24 for fire protection, up from $701,603 in its previous contract.

“If this document was to run for four years, why were the volunteers, or someone that spoke for them, not included in the development of the details of this document,” Baker asked.

He said he disagrees with a statement in the city-county fire contract that reads that it is in the best interest of citizens in rural Adams County to let the Natchez Fire Department provide basic responsibility for fire protection.

“Do you realize how long it takes to get an NFD unit to some parts of the county?” Baker asked. “You do maintain, to some degree, four volunteer fire stations.”

He said it takes a house trailer seven to 10 minutes to become fully involved when it is on fire.

“A trailer located in Cranfield, Kingston, or basically any areas outside of a 2-mile radius of Station 4 will be gone by the time Natchez gets there,” Baker said.

Some of the language in the city-county contract is insulting to the county’s volunteers, he claimed.

“The statement about volunteers will be subordinate to the Natchez Fire Department is both demeaning and insulting, but also just plain offensive. These men and women have many hours of training and experience. They are committed to leaving their families in the middle of the night, holidays, including Christmas mornings, to protect the lives and property of county residents 24-7,” Baker said.

He claimed that the Natchez Fire Department’s involvement with Adams County fire districts has no direct impact on insurance ratings and that only the volunteer fire departments are involved in that equation.

“My point is that with a minimum of expense and effort by this board, when fully supporting these volunteer departments, insurance ratings can drop and will be a money saver for all homeowners,” Baker said.

Noting the county supervisors are beginning their work on the county’s next fiscal year budget, which runs Oct. 1, 2025, through Sept. 30, 2026, he urged supervisors to fully fund the county’s volunteer fire departments.

“The insurance rebate money sent by the state will go a long way toward building viable and effective departments. It will maintain and repair the trucks that are in desperate need of work. And it will ensure that these departments have the needed manpower to respond to most all emergencies that occur, including assisting Natchez Fire if need be inside the city limits. I would also suggest that mutual aid agreements be developed with the appropriate departments to ensure there is no misunderstanding as to each entity’s responsibility,” Baker said.

District 2 Supervisor Kevin Wilson, board president, invited Baker or another representative of the volunteer fire association to participate in negotiating fire contracts.