Peel Fire Protection District

“All fire dues payers become members of the fire protection district by paying their $40 annual fire dues. Members have some voting rights but the vast majority of all operating decisions are made by the 8 member board of commissioners and directors. Commissioners are the officers of the corporation, directors are not officers but have equal voting rights.”

“A copy of all relevant pages of form 990 was shown to each board member at the april 2026 board meeting. The peel fire station is 55 round trip miles from the nearest commercial copy machine. Making the 200 page copies needed to give a complete form 990 to each board member is a hardship for a small rural volunteer fire department.”

“The governing instruments and financial statements are available to all that request to see them. 2025 financial statements for the fire protection district (not including the friends) are filed for record with the marion county arkansas clerk, and are a public record. A large sign in front of the main fire station shows when activities are scheduled and all meetings are open to the public. The fire protection district does not have a conflict of interest policy. No one is paid, all are volunteers.”

“We filed for a group exemption number (gen) 2 years ago but have not heard back from the irs. We have one unincorporated affiliate called the friends of the peel fire protection district (friends) that has been affiliated with the fire department since it was incorporated in 1981. The function of the friends is to raise money for the department by putting on a pancake breakfast and sometimes another event. As a result of our request for a gen the friends have received their own taxpayer id number and will file their own tax return for 2025.”

“In previous years we have included in our form 990 return our unincorporated affiliate the friends. Two years ago we requested a group exemption number (gen) and the irs has not replied except to provide us with a tin for the friends which we requested as part of our gen application. For our 2025 form 990 return we are excluding the friends and they are filing their own 990-n filing using their new tin. The friends only asset is a bank account which had a balance of $11,619 at 12-31-2024. The pfpd beginning equity balance is thus reduced by $11,619 as of the start of 2025.”