[BillyMac]

Here in Connecticut, subvarsity basketball officials will get a relatively big raise next year.

It started a few years ago when the CIAC wanted all basketball officials (we were the last sport to not do so) to become dues paying members the NFHS.

Connecticut being a 100% IAABO state, we already got our NFHS rulebooks and NFHS casebooks from IAABO so we saw no value in joining the NFHS and held out.

Keep in mind that IAABO used to annually provide all members with NFHS rulebooks and NFHS casebooks, a practice that stopped this year when IAABO published their own "rules guide", while still strongly suggesting that members purchase their own NFHS rulebooks and NFHS casebooks directly from the NFHS.

Using a carrot instead of a stick, the CIAC negotiated with our state IAABO board.

We will all join the NFHS next year.

In return ...

Next year the CIAC will increase the subvarsity (junior varsity, freshmen, middle school) game fee from 65% of a varsity fee (as it’s been for at least four decades) to 70% of a varsity fee (on top of an annual cost of living increase equal to the average increase in teacher pay statewide that we’ve been getting for decades).

The CIAC has also promised to assign more three person crews in the state tournament next year (three person crews have only been mandatory starting in the quarterfinals for the past several years).

While the initial incentive surrounding this was about joining the NFHS, it really came down to the CIAC realizing that it needed to do more to recruit and retain new basketball officials statewide.