Lincoln County Judge Buddy Earnest has asked representatives of county fire departments to meet with the Quorum Court to explain their request to establish fire districts so that fire dues can be put on tax rolls.
According to a story in the Lincoln Ledger newspaper Wednesday, the fire chiefs have met with Earnest and County Attorney Clint Todd about the issue. Todd was quoted as saying that there were two ways to establish fire districts, the first was to have the Quorum Court to vote on the issue and the second was to get 51 percent of the signatures of the last election voting total, which Todd estimated was about 2,800 to 3,000 who voted.
That means between 1,400 and $1,500 signatures of people supporting the idea of creating a fire district would be needed. Todd also recommended that the petitions be done electronically instead of going door to door because of the pandemic.
The 51 percent of voters do not have to be from the fire district they live in.
The newspaper reported that Frank Gibson, who spoke for the fire departments said in 2019 the Arkansas Legislature approved a law that allows collecting fire dues at tax time by the Count Clerk’s Office. He said collecting dues has always been a problem and the fire departments were lucky if they could get 20 to 30 percent of the people in the district to pay the dues.
