The Missouri Supreme Court has upheld a Cole County Circuit Court decision that a charter city within St. Louis County must continue to pay for Fire Protection District Services even though it annexed a portion of the unincorporated area in 1997.
The City of Crestwood sued the Affton Fire Protection District, alleging that continuing to make payments violates the state constitution’s ban on special laws, due process, and the Hancock Amendment but Cole County Judge Jon Beetem ruled in favor of Affton.
“The city of Crestwood wanted to not have the fire protection district to continue to provide services in the city,” said St. Louis attorney James R. Layton of Tueth Keeney Cooper Mohan & Jackstadt, who represented the fire district. “They wanted, once there was an annexation vote, to have the fire protection district boundary changed so it could exclude the portion that was now in the city of Crestwood and provide their own services.”
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled en banc that annexation in St. Louis County presents a unique risk to the economic viability of the fire protection district, which levies taxes in areas subject to annexation.
“There is the threat that if you cherry-pick the most valuable areas out of a Fire Protection District, and yet the Fire Protection District still has to serve the rest of the area then, at some point, the district may not be financially viable,” Layton told the St. Louis Record.
As a result of the Missouri Supreme Court’s decision, the city of Crestwood must continue to pay the Affton Fire Protection District $550,000 every year, according to attorney James C. Hetlage, who represents the city of Crestwood and its residents.
"Unfortunately, the Missouri Supreme Court had adopted a new standard to analyze special laws back in December of 2019, which was after the city had filed the lawsuit and after the appeal had been filed, and using a rational basis test is making it very, very challenging for anyone to successfully challenge a special law in the future,” Hetlage told the St. Louis Record.
In addition to challenging Sections 72.418.2 and 31.322.3 of the 2016 Revised Missouri Statutes as being a special law because it only applies in St. Louis, the city of Crestwood also alleged a violation of the Hancock Amendment claim, which requires that a tax must be adopted with a vote by the people.
“The Supreme Court ruled that it's not a tax,” Layton said in an interview. “It's a fee that the city has to pay because of the choice that it made to do the annexation and so it didn’t implicate the Hancock Amendment.”
In its opinion, the Missouri Supreme Court stated specifically the nature of the fee paid to the fire district is inconsequential because the residents don’t pay it.
“Crestwood—not its residents—must pay an annual fee to the district,” wrote Missouri Supreme Court Judge Patricia Breckenridge in the April 20 decision. “Accordingly, the fee imposed on Crestwood under section 72.418.2 is not a tax on the resident-taxpayers of Crestwood.”
Hetlage said the ramifications of the new standard is concerning but that the city of Crestwood looks forward to continuing to work with the Affton Fire Protection District to provide the residents of Crestwood with fire and emergency medical service
“From the standpoint of the Crestwood, it's disappointed with the decision and continues to feel that it's unfair to have one special statute that only governs annexation in St. Louis County and a different statute that would apply to Crestwood if it were located in any other county throughout the state,” Hetlage said.