NATCHEZ — The City of Natchez and Adams County seemingly have agreed on a plan to provide fire protection for county residents for which the county will pay the city $635,243 per year.

The Adams County Board of Supervisors adopted the plan Monday, and the Natchez Board of Aldermen is expected to adopt it at its meeting today.

The joint-plan was created after several months of meetings among Natchez Mayor Butch Brown, Supervisor David Carter, County Fire Coordinator Stan Owens, Natchez Fire Chief Oliver Stewart and consultant Jay Fitch.

When reviewing the 2013 proposal last fall, the supervisors balked at a suggested rate increase, citing concerns about the Natchez Fire Department’s ability to respond to fires in rural parts of the county.

For several days last fall, the supervisors considered forming an independent fire district in the county because the fire arrangement appeared poised to expire with no agreement, but the county supervisors and the Natchez Board of Aldermen reached an agreement, with the county agreeing to increase the annual payment by $50,000 to a total of $626,000.

Supervisors said last year that they believed the county was overpaying for fire service. The city had concerns that the fee the county was paying did not reflect some of the ancillary costs of providing fire protection to county residents.

Fitch said Monday the current fees are not “completely out of bounds.” The fees, he said, are within 3.4 percent of a benchmark calculation established by the state of Minnesota, which has done calculations for similar fire protection planning.

The plan presented Monday is a step toward developing an equitable long-term plan for the city and county collaborating to improve emergency services, Fitch said.

The plan includes several short-term, intermediate and long-term goals.

Fitch said the foundational steps for the fire plan include strengthening training, capacity and recruitment efforts for county volunteer fire departments.

Improving dispatch technology and procedures is also important, Fitch said, to ensure a more appropriate dispatch of resources.

Fitch said the current fire plan required the NFD to respond to incidents such as grass fires and other low-risk calls that volunteers could likely handle.

The fire plan calls for the reduction of requests for city fire services during the next 18 months and thereafter to approximately 25 percent of total city and county annual, non-medical calls.

If the call percentage goes above 30 percent after the 18-month grace period, the county will be subject to an increased fee equal to 3 percent of the current contract value. The fee would be assessed and paid annually by the county for any successive year that the response volume exceeds 30 percent.

Fitch also said the fire department is not currently included as fire response to critical medical calls. Increasing that would also be a first step in the service plan. Fitch said Owens is currently working on a grant that would put defibrillators in fire trucks.

Other considerations included in the plan would be a mutual aid agreement between the city and volunteer departments for water supply, city and county cooperation on grant funding for fire equipment assigned to the county, building a county fire station approximately 5 to 7 miles south of the city limits, creating a countywide fire district, incorporating airport personnel into a multi-responsibility fire rescue team and other options.