NATCHEZ — The Adams County Supervisors voted in favor of signing their annual deal with the City of Natchez to pay for fire protection for residences outside the city limits.

But the supervisors declined at Monday’s board meeting to ante up the extra $50,000 the city included in a contract that the city’s attorney Everett Sanders drafted a few weeks ago.

The supervisors’ voted unanimously on Board President Darryl Grennell’s motion to authorize County Attorney Bobby Cox to execute the contract “minus the $50,000.”

Mayor Jake Middleton said Monday, on the phone after the meeting, the Natchez Board of Aldermen would have to approve the altered contract before it is executed.

Grennell and District 2 Supervisor Henry Watts both said the county did not budget for an additional $50,000 to be tacked on to fire protection funding.

District 1 Supervisor Mike Lazarus said Pike and Warren counties do not pay the cities of McComb and Vicksburg, respectively, for fire protection at all, but the city stations still respond to calls outside city limits.

Lazarus also noted the county does not charge the city to respond to calls in Natchez to the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, despite a growing number of those calls.

Watts said the sheriff’s office is also currently conducting a costly murder investigation on Linden Drive.

“It sounds like greed is getting involved,” Lazarus said of the $50,000 request.

County Administrator Joe Murray said the county paid the city $548,000 for fire protection last year. This year’s projected payment — if the contract is signed without the $50,000 increase — already includes cost-of-living raises totaling $18,000, or approximately 3 percent more than last year.

District 3 Supervisor Thomas “Boo” Campbell disagreed that greed played a role in the city’s request for an additional $50,000.

“I think (local government) is short of money — the city and county,” Campbell said.

The county, citing a revenue shortfall among other reasons, voted last week to take out a $1.2 million loan to cover the cost of approximately three months of payroll until property taxes are collected in January.

Middleton said Monday the aldermen might discuss the issue at today’s specially called meeting at 4 p.m.

In other news, the supervisors unanimously approved a tax increment-financing plan to pay 50 percent of the ad valorem taxes generated by a proposed Holiday Inn Express toward infrastructure improvements near the hotel’s site on Canal Street near the Hampton Inn.

Bill Williams of Jimmy G. Gouras Urban Planning Consultants said at the hearing the city and county would be free of any liability for the loan, which the developer will take out to spend on the improvements.

“Natchez Hotel Group LLC will pay for and install improvements on behalf of themselves, and then they will seek reimbursement from the county,” Williams said.

If the city agrees to help the developers finance the infrastructure work, they will authorize a $500,000 bond for the project. But Williams said the project is not expected to exceed $300,000.