Quote:
Originally Posted by LouisianaDave
You guys keep watching, I live in Baton Rouge and this past week has gotten nasty. Bonine ran his mouth Wed on radio, then came back on thursday and was more diplomatic. Sunday the LHSOA is having a board meeting then next Wednesday there is a meeting in New Orleans for ALL oficials statewide to hear what the next plan is.
Nevada Ref, can you tell me how you felt Bonine treated you. He said on the radio that he helped get yall a 4% raise. How true or instrumental was he in doing that?
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When I read that claim in the article I thought that it was an inaccurate spin on the situation.
The truth is that the NV contract has contained a provision from long before Bonine was the NIAA Exec Dir stipulating that the officials get the same raise as the state employees (max of 5%) one year later. I will have to check my records for the exact years, but I believe that NV state employees got a 4% raise in 2009, so the officials were contractually due the same for the 2010-2011 school year. During the Summer of 2010, Bonine (then going into his 2nd or 3rd year with the NIAA) asked the officials associations to postpone the raise due to the poor economic situation hitting the state until the financial situation improved. Graciously and foolishly (looking back on it) the officials associations agreed and a memorandum of understanding was drafted to that effect.
At the end of his 3rd year Bonine, then signed a new 3-year contract which contained approximately 16% raise for himself. (I believe his salary went from 115K to 135K.) That was four times what he had just asked the officials to forego! The officials thought "hey, what is that?" Therefore, during the Summer of 2013 the officials groups informed Bonine that they wanted their raise. He gave the same answer as he just gave the La officials that school budgets had already been made on June 1 and that it was too late to do it for the coming school year. He also said that he didn't have the power to grant such and that it would have to be voted upon by the school superintendents. Why the superintendents would possibly have the ability to vote on something that was already in a written contract seemed ludicrous to me. However, there was not enough support for strike/walkout amongst the association leaders. Most felt that $2 per game (4% of a $50 game fee) wasn't worth striking or going to court over. So the NIAA was duly informed that the officials would no longer be continuing with the memorandum of understanding to postpone their entitled 4% raise and that the rates would increase for the 2014-2015 school year (last year). Prior to that year the NIAA Board of Control and whatever superintendents were consulted approved the 4% increase, but they didn't really have any ability to not do so. Bonine departed in the Spring of 2015 shortly before his second three-year contract expired by giving 90 days notice to the NIAA Board of Control, a provision of his contract. It came out recently that in addition to his salary, he had been receiving a 10K vehicle allowance and an $1,800 longevity raise (an extra stipend for remaining in the position year after year). So he effectively hosed the officials out of a contractual raise for either four or five years through the ploys of "the schools don't have any money for a raise" and a delay tactic, while simultaneously taking a significant personal raise! During 2014-2015, he also gave each of the other NIAA staff salary raises of about $5,000, which amounts to a $20K annual expenditure. Meanwhile the NIAA has continued to cut back on the number of officials traveling for the postseason State tournaments and continues to only have four teams in those events, when it used to be eight in some sports, such as basketball. In my opinion, it is a farce for Bonine to claim that he got the NV officials a 4% raise. All that he did was orchestrate the postponement of it on behalf of the schools for several years. Most of us were glad to see him go. He tries to bully people and gets angry when he doesn't get his way. Seems that he just lost his cool on the radio down there.
The La association's position that their raise needs to come this year and not next is the right way to go as they are not falling for Bonine's delay tactic. I'm pleased to see that they have more strength than the NV people did in being willing to strike.
PS Both Bonine and his son were/are pro baseball players, so someone should suggest that he help the kids by going out and calling games himself. Of course, he's already on salary, so he wouldn't need to get any game fees.
PPS I'm sure that the guy who's just in this for the kids is making at least $150K down there as that state is far more populous then NV.