The IRS stripped the Stony Creek Volunteer Rescue Squad of its nonprofit status in 2023 after it failed to file income tax returns for three consecutive years, IRS records show.
IRS records show the rescue squad filed its last tax return in 2020 for 2019. No returns were filed for the 2020, 2021 and 2022 tax years before the IRS revoked the nonprofit status.
Stony Creek’s 2019 tax filing, the most recent on record, shows its chairman as Steve White, who is also the chair of the Sussex County, Virginia, board of supervisors. White has voted several times on issues related to the Stony Creek Volunteer Rescue Squad while a county supervisor.
Checks & Balances Project (C&BP) is waiting for a response to its Freedom of Information Act for Sussex County’s recusal policy for elected officials. The county has said it needs a week longer than normal to produce the policy, though online searches suggest no such policy exists. C&BP is also seeking to learn the number of times in the last 25 years that a supervisor recused himself or herself from a financially self-interested vote, which is illegal under Virginia law.
Neither White nor any other Sussex County supervisor has responded to requests for comment about the county’s policies or the Stony Creek squad’s failure to file timely tax returns.
The IRS reinstated Stony Creek’s nonprofit status in January 2025, but no tax returns for the group are listed after the 2019 return on the IRS website.
Questions about finances
The murkiness around Stony Creek’s finances was noted in the record of an April 17, 2025, board meeting. According to publicly available minutes from the board meeting:
Then-Sussex County Fire Chief Nick Sheffield told supervisors that Stony Creek and the nearby Waverly rescue squad each bill for its services.
“Each of the rescue squads operate off of that money,” he said.
“There’s a net profit to that and nobody knows what the net profit is,” Sheffield said, although it is unclear if Sheffield was referring to Stony Creek’s profits of those of another county rescue squad.
There is no record from that time showing anyone at the supervisors’ meeting knew that Stony Creek had lost its tax status two years earlier because it had not filed its taxes for several years.
Later last year, Sheffield left his job and now works in North Carolina. Publicly available board minutes do not specify the circumstances of his departure. C&BP also asked supervisors if Sheffield’s departure was connected to his questions about SCVRS finances.
Ray Locker is the executive director for Checks & Balances Project, an investigative watchdog blog holding government officials, lobbyists, and corporate management accountable to the public. Funding for C&BP is provided by Renew American Prosperity and individual donors.
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