The Nixa Fire Protection District has a sales tax measure on next week’s ballot.
The district, which serves approximately 34,000 people, is asking for approval of a 1% sales tax to be able to increase firefighter pay and benefits as well as staffing. Currently, the starting wage for a Nixa firefighter is just above Missouri’s minimum wage of $15 an hour.
"When we do recruiting and, you know, public education events and different things, talking with the kids at schools and whatnot, we had a question raised by a junior high student a few months ago and they said, well, you know, they were talking about wages and they said, 'well, why would I want to come and risk my life for $16 an hour when I can go and serve coffee down the street for $18 an hour?' And that puts it in perspective," said Nixa Fire Chief Lloyd Walles.
The Nixa Fire Protection District is currently funded by the local property tax. Right now, the district’s general levy is $.603 per $100 of assessed valuation, according to Walles, which is expected to bring in around $4.6 million in 2026.
A bill passed by the Missouri Legislature in 2025 allows fire protection districts to propose a sales tax rate of up to 1%. As part of that, districts must simultaneously reduce their property tax rates by an amount equivalent to 50% of the expected sales tax revenue if the sales tax passes. Walles estimates that the district would collect around $4 million in sales tax, and the property tax would be rolled back approximately $2 million, so he expects the district would see about $2 million more each year if the measure is approved on August 4.
Voters last November said no to a property tax increase for the Nixa Fire Protection District.
“We heard you,” said Walles in a statement. “In November, voters told us they did not want a property tax increase. We listened. We went back to work, and we found another path — one that spreads the responsibility for funding fire protection more broadly while also reducing the burden on property owners over time.”
Walles said they’re in contract with their labor union to determine what a new starting wage will be if the August 4 ballot measure passes. He said they also want to implement a pay step plan for employees, "so that they would know two years from now, three years from now, this is what my wage would look like. And so, wages and benefits are certainly the first of the items on the agenda if this passes to help recruit quality candidates but, more importantly, to retain the quality candidates that we have and try to get them to a wage that's...more comparable with the area."
Walles said the last time they intentionally added staff was in 2018. The district had some long-term debt that was going to be paid off in 2020, and it received a federal grant that paid a portion of the wages for the three new firefighters. At the time, he said the district was responding to around 3,800 calls for service each year. That grew last year to just over 4,900 calls.
"And we feel like we're going to reach a tipping point here where, in order to provide a timely response to the community's emergency and have units available to respond to those emergencies, we're going to have to add additional staffing," he said. "And so, wages and benefits, first priority. Additional staffing, second priority or equal, parallel priority, to be able to staff up the fire stations that we currently have and add more staffing to respond to those emergencies every day."
Walles said they also have an emergency communications infrastructure that will need to be replaced soon and they’re looking at “some pretty substantial costs to upgrade radio communications.” That system allows them to talk to their dispatch center in Ozark as well as local and national law enforcement agencies. The Nixa Fire Protection District responds to requests for help from departments in Greene County, and they respond to requests from Nixa.
"And so, we need this emergency communications infrastructure to be able to help with that day-to-day communications when we're all working together on some of these incidents," he said. "We are small departments still. We just don't have the staffing to handle first alarm structure fire on our own. And so, if we get dispatched for a fire here in Nixa, Battlefield, Rogersville, Ozark, any of these smaller communities outside the city of Springfield, we're all working together on those. So, if I, as an example, if I had a structure fire dispatch right now, we would get a crew from Battlefield and a crew from Ozark as a minimum to come to the community to help us with that situation."
He said the district not only responds to structure fires but to things like medical emergencies and vehicle accidents.
A sales tax would be paid not only by area residents, he pointed out, but by people passing through the area who might stop to buy gas or make other purchases. And those same people rely on the Nixa Fire Protection District to help if they’re involved in an accident or need other emergency assistance while traveling through the city.
You can find out more about the sales tax on the August 4 ballot for those in the Nixa Fire Protection District at nixafire.gov.
