03/01/2026
Feb. 28, 2026
Iron county Ambulance District
The following is a public statement released from the Iron County Ambulance District
On Tuesday Feb 24, 2026, at the regularly scheduled meeting of the iron County Ambulance District, the board made the difficult decision to change our Annapolis base to a 12-hour crew, 7am-7pm beginning March 1. The district, in the past few years has seen a decline in our monthly sales tax by several thousand dollars.
The monthly sales tax has been less due to the decision our leaders in Jefferson City made to not charge sales tax on mining equipment and disposable supplies that the mining companies use within the course of their business. The mining companies qualify for these exemptions and as you are probably aware there is not a lot of other opportunities for taxable sales in Iron County.
Missouri provides a significant sale and uses tax exemption for machinery, equipment, parts, and materials directly used or consumed in mining, as outlined in Section 144.054 RSMo and Section 144.030(2) RSMo. This exemption covers items essential to establishing, replacing, or expanding mining plants that produce products for final sale. © Missouri Dep... +2
Key Details on Missouri Mining Sales Tax Exemption:
• Exemption Scope: Covers machinery, equipment, materials, and supplies used directly in the mining process to extract, process, or produce a product for sale.
• Eligible Items: Includes machinery for new,
• Component Parts: Materials used in mining that become a component part or ingredient of the final product are also exempt.
• Utility Exemption: Electrical energy and other utilities consumed in the mining process are exempt from state and local sales/use tax.
• Exemption Certificate: A Form 149
• (Sales/Use Tax Exemption Certificate) must be provided to the vendor. © Missouri Dep... +3
• Note: While state-level sales tax is exempt, local sales taxes may still apply in certain cases, although many manufacturing/mining-related purchases are exempt from both. • Missouri
• 2021 Expansion: Legislation designed to capture tax on online purchases expanded the exemption for mines and factories, significantly impacting local sales tax revenue in mining-heavy counties.
• 2023 Law: A law taking effect in 2023 further solidified the removal of local sales taxes on equipment used in energy production, including the mining industry, leading to revenue shortfalls for local governments.
• Section 144.054 RSMo: This statute governs the exemptions for machinery, equipment, materials, and chemicals used or consumed in mining, processing, or compounding products.
With the loss of several thousand dollars of sales tax, we have also seen increased expenses in areas such as the recent increase in minimum wage, increased supply costs, increase in health insurance premiums, increase in vehicle and property insurance costs, increase in workers compensation costs, increase in utility bills in all of our 3 bases, and the list goes on.
In January, we reduced our backup coverage at the viburnum base to 8 hours per day Monday through Friday. This means that we rely largely on voluntary coverage in the evenings and on weekends (the crew members are only paid when the first unit goes out, and they are asked to be on standby until that unit returns).
The layout of Iron County makes it difficult to operate in the same capacity as other districts that surround us. Madison county has one base to cover the entire county; Salem has one base (2 crews) to cover their entire county.
Reynolds county contracts with WashCo Ems to cover their entire county with one ambulance.
Clearwater has one base.
Washington county and St Francois County both have multiple bases but also have a much larger tax base to work with, a larger population to serve and a lot more call volume to receive revenue from when compared to Iron County.
Please know that there is still coverage for the Annapolis area even through the ambulance will be coming from Pilot K**b after 7 pm at night.
We also have first responders and Ems personnel in the Annapolis area that will at times be utilized to respond to calls in that area to provide care and stabilize as necessary.
We are in the process of setting up another first responder class that we will teach to where we have additional personnel ready to respond and stabilize until we can get an ambulance on the scene.
Myself and the ambulance board are available to answer your questions and concerns in person at the office or at our Ambulance board meetings held the last Tuesday of every month at 5 pm.
If you would like to be added to the agenda, please call (573) 546-3951 and we will get you added
Sincerely,
Johnny Setzer, Administrator
Iron County Ambulance
