High School pre-season games

IMHO it makes him a horrible assignor. Unless the regular season games pay very well and you are guaranteed enough of them to justify it, I'd pass on his "requirement" as it sets a bad precedent. It's one thing to volunteer your time (think AYSO model), quite another to be required to do so.

 

Yes.


Ok, maybe horrible is too strong a word.

In Texas the UIL makes the rules about payments. They have made it so that scrimmages are paid at a much lower rate and are paid directly to the chapters, so the referees are supposed to be working for the benefit of their chapters, not themselves. Among other things those payments are supposed to make up for the fact that schools cannot pay assigning fees. I suspect something similar is happening in Kentucky.

The reality is that none of us like to work for free. We try to pay refs who work scrimmages a nominal fee. That also means we charge local dues, which are essentially assigning/administrative fees.

We have some refs who have very limited availability during scrimmages that magically opens up once the real games begin. If we had more refs than we have slots, we would definitely reward the helpful refs.

Of course, it might be that your assignor is sticking it to you, in which case you're probably screwed no matter what you do. It rarely pays to piss off an assignor.

 

As referees we already have other people telling us how horrible we are. You don't need to be thinking that too. I would pass on this group and find another. We are lucky around here we have 4 different high schools assignor groups within a 45 minute drive. If he is the only show then follow the golden rule.

 

what is the difference between this an being required to pay to take re-certification classes? as others have said, put it down as required training before the season starts.

My rec league requires a "game-ready" clinic before every season that is un-paid as well. not exactly a scrimmage, but still another one of those requirements that we have to fulfill. I sill mark down my mileage in my expense log since I am required to attend....

 

No, but I'm not sure necessarily that its your assignor's fault. What did your organization that covers the matches agree to? Beyond that, if your organization agreed to such an arrangement, its part of the cost of doing business and the assignor is passing around the 'free' assignments to everyone.

So, yes your time is worth something, but sometimes you do things at 'no cost' for the benefit of being paid later.

 

Our HS board will put 3 refs on the pre-season games (dual ref system). 2 refs get paid regular fee and the 3rd works for free. In almost every case, the 3rd ref is a newbie or 2nd year ref and it results in a mentoring session.

I did not like it when I was the newbie, but like it just fine now. Reality is that the dual ref system takes getting used to and the newbies need this training.

 

Our local associations in KY have virtually no authority or bargaining power over the schools, refs, or anything really. The khsaa is the real power and the assignor is their petty lord below that.

My particular area of the state didn’t get a pay raise for about 10 years and when we finally did it was a whopping $5 per position but only varsity.

Our assignor hasn’t “required” scrimmages yet, by at the same time we don’t have the numbers for that to be a threat with any teeth anyway.

@ptref will I see you this weekend at BGSG?

 

Wow. I'm feeling a lot better about how our state works. First, there are no "pre-season" games. The state high school organization put a limit on the number of games a team can play during the year and any scrimmage would count against that total. There is a separate limit for "jamborees." Jamborees are usually the first or second Saturday of the season, typically 30" games, but referees are paid full bore for jamborees. Jamborees have actually been declining in numbers in recent years.

For us, the assignor can bill the schools a certain amount per official, depending on the level of the game (varsity v. sub varsity) and the size classification of the school, plus mileage. Our association then divvies up the money a little differently, paying the R more than the AR's on DSC games, and both R's on duals a bit less than a DSC R. Mileage is split evenly among all of the officials on the game, but there's a $5.00 minimum mileage.

We have one assignor for an area, who may have somewhere from four to 150 referees, depending on the part of the state. Schools are assigned to that assignor and association, so they can't go shopping for officials. They can choose to veto the assignor selected by the association, although I've only seen that happen once and it was fully deserved. Most of the time, it's kind of like "we have to live with each other, so lets just make this work."

 

Think of those poor children though... Ask the assignor if he still gets his per game fee from the school for assigning the scrimmage.

 

In my association, we get full price. The only thing that is different is that because our schools don’t start until after Labor day, the pre-season games are all played at 10:00am and since I am a pensioner, I can make those games every day!

 

Around here, we get 1/2 fee for preseason scrimmage. Technically, all referees are "required" to do a preseason scrimmage in my association, but because our schedule is based on availability and most preseason games are in the mornings, this "requirement" often gets waived. You can't do a preseason scrimmage if you cannot get out of work. In NYS, there are specific requirements for scrimmages so that games don't count them as regular season games and pay the refs less for a game or two. In scrimmages, all goals restart with goal kicks, games are divided into either quarters or thirds, and coaches can request specific plays be run. For example, one time I had a coach who wanted to practice defending corner kicks so we did one corner kick three times!

 

Not getting full price for your time is an absolute disgrace.

 

How about not paying for games until 3 months after the season ends, then demanding registration fees 3 1/2 months BEFORE the season begins?

And they wonder why they have a hard time recruiting and retaining referees.

 

I don't know who is issuing the checks to you. In our area, the association collects the game fees from the schools and then pays the referees. While the associations typically pay monthly, I know there have been times when it's been a little tight covering payroll because some schools are slow paying the association.

 

We started using arbiter pay because people were complaining about slow payments.

Now they complain that they will have to pay taxes because the 1099 amount is tracked by arbiter so it lumps all payments together.

 

We must have it good in Wisconsin. Refs get paid directly by the schools, and half of them give a check at the game. The other half come through in 2-3 weeks.

 

The association bills the schools, collects the money and then finally pays it out, but only after all of the schools have paid and they double and triple check it to make sure no referee gets overpaid.

The association is a group of individuals who have convinced the schools that they are the only ones who can assign referees and therefore are the only ones the schools will deal with. No referee input into the membership of this group and if you want to referee high school, you have to deal with them, no independent refereeing with the schools.

 

In our area, we have one district that has decided to use ArbiterPay/RefPay. Ironically, they are probably the worst district in terms of paying out in a timely manner. And it has been a royal pain getting refs into the system as the district doesn't know what to do. A couple of us end up having to chase between the district and AP and it's very frustrating.

 

We all just went in our own accounts and put our personal info ourselves. Works for anyone using the states arbiter access.

 

The problem has been getting the ref accounts added into our group. The ref can make the pay account but they are not being linked correctly somehow. The district originally wanted us to use it to assign games. We told them to pound sand. If they want to use it to pay refs they (the district) had to put in the games and then after the fact assign the refs. That alone can take a couple of weeks. And somehow the ref can have an Arbiter account for assigning purposes that is independent of their Pay account and the issue is those accounts have to be linked together. That's the hangup. I admit to not being an AP expert so I'm not sure I'm explaining it correctly.

 

That is in fact correct. About half of the districts near me use Arbiter Pay and they tend to be on the fast side.
A couple of times last season I flipped out because I got Arbiter notifications that I had been assigned to new games and none of my Houston assignors use Arbiter. It turns out that I was being put on games I was about to do before I had worked them to expedite pay after the game.

 

But the schools are still the payors, aren't they? In other words regardless of your total ArbiterPay haul, isn't it still a matter of how much you get from each district/school?

Around here we get paid via ArbiterPay for playoffs and for selected (and growing) individual schools. So far my total through ArbiterPay hasn't crossed $600 so I have more opinion than experience (!), but man if >$600 from all payors means a 1099 that would suuuuuck.