Rural Macon County homeowners pay for fire protection in one of two ways, through a property tax levied by a fire protection district or through yearly dues to a volunteer fire department, depending on where they live.
Four tax-funded districts levy on Macon County property, according to the Missouri State Auditor's tax rate database. Most of the rest of the rural county is served by departments that live on dues.
Macon County Assessor Jon Kerns sent Chariton Media Group a county map of the fire districts Oct. 1. It shows the La Plata, Bevier, Callao, and Tri-Creek districts, plus an area served by New Boston and Bucklin in Linn County.
"The balance is Macon Rural that pays dues annually," Kerns wrote in an email.
The city of Macon sits in Hudson Township, and its fire department serves only the city, Kerns wrote. The Macon Fire Department has eight full-time staff and 12 paid reserve firefighters and an ISO class 4 rating, according to the city.
State records do not match that picture. Besides Macon Rural, the Missouri Division of Fire Safety registry, updated Sept. 25, lists four more fire associations, the dues-funded type of department, based in the county: the Atlanta Volunteer Fire Department, the Elmer Rural Fire Association, the Ethel Volunteer Fire Department, and the New Cambria Volunteer Fire Department. Kerns' email and map do not mention them, and the registry does not show the area each department covers.
In the districts, the bill comes with property taxes. For the 2025 tax year, the La Plata Community Fire Protection District levied 63.9 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, the Callao Town and Country Volunteer Fire Protection District levied 36.11 cents, the Tri-Creek Fire Protection District, based in Marceline, levied 30 cents, and the Bevier Fire Protection District levied 28.84 cents, according to the auditor's database.
State law lets a district board set a rate of up to 30 cents per $100 on its own. Higher rates need voter approval, according to Section 321.240.
The La Plata district formed in 2003 when the city of La Plata Fire Department and the La Plata Rural Fire Department combined, according to the district. It covers more than 175 square miles in Macon and Adair counties with one station, 26 members, and seven apparatus, and it is dispatched to more than 300 incidents a year.
Outside the districts, the county has no role in fire dues. Volunteer rural fire departments may collect dues on their own, and that does not involve the county, County Clerk Tammy Perkins wrote in a Sept. 30 email.
Dues can make up most of a department's money. The Macon Rural Fire Department reported $48,700 in membership dues out of $56,952 in total revenue for the fiscal year that ended in September 2017, about 86 percent, according to IRS filings compiled by ProPublica. Those are the most recent figures in the database.
The Atlanta Volunteer Fire Department said membership dues are its main source of money, along with a small amount from the city and donations, the Chronicle reported Oct. 14. Rising operating and insurance costs led the department to raise rural dues, and it started an online fundraiser to fix the transmission on its support vehicle, a retired 1996 Ford E-350 ambulance.
A household that does not pay dues still gets a response. Missouri law lets a volunteer fire association answer any emergency in its area, member or not. It can then bill a nonmember up to $100 for responding, $500 an hour for the time spent, and an amount equal to a year's dues, according to Section 320.302. Paying that bill makes the owner a member in good standing until dues come due again.
An owner who tells the association in writing, before any emergency, not to respond to his property does not owe the fees, according to the same section.
When an insured nonmember files a claim, the insurance company must make the check out to both the owner and the fire association, and the owner must pay the association within 30 days, according to Section 320.305. Breaking either rule is a class A misdemeanor. An association that is not paid can sue for the bill plus up to $10,000 in damages under Section 320.307.
The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a Ray County association's $600 bill to a nonmember in 1988, in Lawson Rural Fire Association v. Avery, but threw out a $200 attorney fee award.
About 70 percent of Missouri fire departments are volunteer, and another 12 percent are mostly volunteer, according to the MOST Policy Initiative, citing the U.S. Fire Administration.
Chariton Media Group emailed questions about dues, nonmember bills, and unpaid accounts to the Atlanta Volunteer Fire Department and the La Plata Community Fire Protection District Sept. 30 and did not receive a response in time for publication. Bevier Fire Chief Justin Tubbs asked for the questions, which were sent again Oct. 1, and did not answer them in time for publication.