Effective 28 Aug 2010

320.097. Residency requirements prohibited, when. — 1. As used in this section, "fire department" means any agency or organization that provides fire suppression and related activities, including but not limited to fire prevention, rescue, emergency medical services, hazardous material response, dispatching, or special operations to a population within a fixed and legally recorded geographical area.

2. No employee of a fire department who has worked for seven years for such department shall, as a condition of employment, be required to reside within a fixed and legally recorded geographical area of the fire department if the only public school district available to the employee within such fire department's geographical area is a public school district that is or has been unaccredited or provisionally accredited in the last five years of such employee's employment. Employees who have satisfied the seven-year requirement in this subsection and who choose to reside outside the geographical boundaries of the department shall reside within a one-hour response time. No charter school shall be deemed a public school for purposes of this section.

3. No employee of a fire department who has not resided in such fire department's fixed and legally recorded geographical area, or who has changed such employee's residency because of conditions described in subsection 2 of this section, shall as a condition of employment be required to reside within the fixed and legally recorded geographical area of the fire department if such school district subsequently becomes fully accredited.

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(L. 2007 S.B. 22, A.L. 2010 S.B. 739)

(2012) Exemption from residency restriction for certain veteran firefighters is not an infringement on the constitutional charter city's authority, does not violate equal protection, and is not a special law. City of St. Louis v. State, 382 S.W.3d 905 (Mo.banc).