Umpire's = Independents or Employees ?!?!?!

[Rog]

What would you prefer to be?

An independent contractor: and a member of an umpire association which is responsibile for providing training and assignments.

Or an employee: of your state school system, which would provide the training and assignments.

What do you feel are the pro's and con's of each?????

[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by Rog
What would you prefer to be?

An independent contractor: and a member of an umpire association which is responsibile for providing training and assignments.

Or an employee: of your state school system, which would provide the training and assignments.

What do you feel are the pro's and con's of each?????


Rog rather than reinvent the wheel I believe Peter Osborne responsded to a thread on this very issue. Hopefully, he will visit here and repost his response. I can't locate the thread.

As for my preference - Independent Contractor because we have more flexibility that way.

Pete Booth

[Rog]

re: "rather than reinvent the wheel I believe Peter Osborne responsded to a thread on this very issue"

I do not recall this; but, I'll do a search - thanks!

Ok - I did review these:
Taxes? - 13 replies filknz Nov 8th, 2001 General
organizing officials - 9 replies doghead Oct 9th, 2001 Basketball
Interesting Article. - 5 replies JRutledge May 11th, 2001 Basketball
Are Officials Independent Contractors Or Are They Restricted To Work Leagues ? - 10 replies Love2ref4Ever May 9th, 2001 Basketball
Coaching boxes - 45 replies Rog Mar 28th, 2001 Baseball
A changed call at Texas - 74 replies Carl Childress Feb 27th, 2001 Baseball
Having trouble with taxes - 5 replies Whowefoolin Jan 25th, 2001 Baseball
Conflict of intrest? - 11 replies Ron Pilo Jan 22nd, 2000 Basketball

Now, I guess what I am really asking then is - are we our own worst enemies?
In that, there seems to be little cohesion when it comes to training and improvement.
We keep hearing about the quality of officiating and the politics involved; but, there are no real standards.
But then, there seem to be no real standards in many of the rules for the various leagues.
Then again, maybe I just need to turn around - and stop pi$$ing in the wind?!?!?!?

[Edited by Rog on Dec 4th, 2001 at 03:17 PM]

[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by Rog
re: "rather than reinvent the wheel I believe Peter Osborne responsded to a thread on this very issue"

I do not recall this; but, I'll do a search - thanks!


Rog my bad Peter's response was posted on the URC not this Forum. Anyhow here is Peter's response.

Been there, done that, and in the end we came out way ahead, but it was tough getting there.

I was an assistant assignor for 8 years. 6 or 7 years ago, the same thing happened to our association. Our treasurer got the notice from the state and since we were all independent contractors, he threw it in the trash. Bad move. Fortunately, like you, it was at the end of the baseball season and we were in the process of paying everyone and zeroing out our bank account.

After about 30-60 days of being ignored, the state sent us a letter demanding $5000. Since we had not responded to their original letter, we lost our right to appeal. Our only alternative was to go out of business or pay the fine(?).

We went out of business and reconstituted ourselves as a labor union [501 c(5), I think]. The labor union then contracted with the old assignor who set up a limited liability company. The company contracts with the leagues, collects the fees and pays the umpires. The labor union itself has only dues for income and since its total revenue is less than $10,000 per year, the IRS only charged us a $150 processing fee. I filled out the paperwork myself and got it approved in 22 days. An accountant would charge you $1000 to fill out this paperwork and it might take months to get it approved. We were told that we could expect an 18 month approval process. However, we had an IRS agent in our association who knew exactly where the minefields were and so we filled out the paperwork and designed our union so that there were zero red flags to delay the application. In other words, we designed an organization to fit the paperwork, rather than write the paperwork to describe the organization. Within limits, after we were approved, we did what we wanted.

Be very careful how you respond to the state. Just because you say that he is not an employee, does not make it so. You need to check out you states laws regarding independent contractors. Some states specify that amateur athletic officials are independent contractors. If your state is one of them, be sure to quote the law in your letter to the state. Don't expect them to know the law.

(This man is trying to collect unemployment insurance. Assuming that you have a need for umpires, you might tell the state that he is welcome to come work for you any day, any time! That negates his claim. I am assuming that you did not fire him for being incompetent.)

Filling out the paperwork is the trickiest part. You must not allow yourself to get bogged down in minutia. The appearance of the paperwork is more important than its content when you send it back. By that, I don't mean that you have to type it. I mean that the critical blocks need to be filled in with the answers that raise the fewest red flags. The rest of the blocks should have N/A or other one word answers. Find out what the state is looking for. Make sure you answers match the answers that they are looking for in determining that he is not an employee.

If you are like most associations, you probably are loosely formed and have very few policies. Now is the time to invent the policies. Make sure your new policies match those that will cause the state to determine that this person was an independent contractor. If you had no policy on a certain subject, develop one and adopt it. If you had unwritten policies that were at odds with the states guidelines, deny that those unwritten policies ever existed. If your board of directors is too sqeamish about this, then go out of business and reconstitute yourself. Hopefully, you can accomplish all of this within your board of directors and not have to go to the membership. Explaining this stuff to the membership will not be a pleasant experience. They will blame the board of directors for failing to take care of business.

Let me give you an example of a minefeld that you must avoid. This is just one minefield, there are many. Some states (and sometimes the IRS) specify that if a business will not allow its workers to work for anyone else, then they are by definition, employees, and not independent contractors. Many organizations have rules (usually unwritten) that their officials cannot work for other organizations. Ergo, they are employees in that state.

Now, you and I know that many assignors don't want their officials working for other assignors. However, when you fill out the paperwork, you must state that each umpire is free to contract with any association that he wants. However, next year when it comes to actual assigning, you can go back to your old way of doing business. Just make sure that each official who works for other organizations gets a few crappy games so that you don't violate the letter of the law. Save the good games for your loyal officials and you will be able to have your cake and eat it too.

You are dealing with government bureaucrats here. They like being saluted and groveled before. They are much less interested in what you actually do after you have saluted and groveled.

Our reconstitution turned out to be a brilliant move. Our members could not tell the difference between the old organization and the new. To the working umpire, everything appeared the same. However, in dealing with bureacracies, we are much more bulletproof. It is very convenient to have the business of umpiring separated from the umpire organization itself. One example: Our board of directors has much less liability now and there is always next to nothing in the union treasury for anyone to tap anyway.

Peter

BTW, for those that don't know me, I work in DC.

[PeteBooth]

Originally posted by Rog
re: "rather than reinvent the wheel I believe Peter Osborne responsded to a thread on this very issue"

I do not recall this; but, I'll do a search - thanks!

Rog my bad the thread was posted on the URC. Here's Peter's Response.

Been there, done that, and in the end we came out way ahead, but it was tough getting there.

I was an assistant assignor for 8 years. 6 or 7 years ago, the same thing happened to our association. Our treasurer got the notice from the state and since we were all independent contractors, he threw it in the trash. Bad move. Fortunately, like you, it was at the end of the baseball season and we were in the process of paying everyone and zeroing out our bank account.

After about 30-60 days of being ignored, the state sent us a letter demanding $5000. Since we had not responded to their original letter, we lost our right to appeal. Our only alternative was to go out of business or pay the fine(?).

We went out of business and reconstituted ourselves as a labor union [501 c(5), I think]. The labor union then contracted with the old assignor who set up a limited liability company. The company contracts with the leagues, collects the fees and pays the umpires. The labor union itself has only dues for income and since its total revenue is less than $10,000 per year, the IRS only charged us a $150 processing fee. I filled out the paperwork myself and got it approved in 22 days. An accountant would charge you $1000 to fill out this paperwork and it might take months to get it approved. We were told that we could expect an 18 month approval process. However, we had an IRS agent in our association who knew exactly where the minefields were and so we filled out the paperwork and designed our union so that there were zero red flags to delay the application. In other words, we designed an organization to fit the paperwork, rather than write the paperwork to describe the organization. Within limits, after we were approved, we did what we wanted.

Be very careful how you respond to the state. Just because you say that he is not an employee, does not make it so. You need to check out you states laws regarding independent contractors. Some states specify that amateur athletic officials are independent contractors. If your state is one of them, be sure to quote the law in your letter to the state. Don't expect them to know the law.

(This man is trying to collect unemployment insurance. Assuming that you have a need for umpires, you might tell the state that he is welcome to come work for you any day, any time! That negates his claim. I am assuming that you did not fire him for being incompetent.)

Filling out the paperwork is the trickiest part. You must not allow yourself to get bogged down in minutia. The appearance of the paperwork is more important than its content when you send it back. By that, I don't mean that you have to type it. I mean that the critical blocks need to be filled in with the answers that raise the fewest red flags. The rest of the blocks should have N/A or other one word answers. Find out what the state is looking for. Make sure you answers match the answers that they are looking for in determining that he is not an employee.

If you are like most associations, you probably are loosely formed and have very few policies. Now is the time to invent the policies. Make sure your new policies match those that will cause the state to determine that this person was an independent contractor. If you had no policy on a certain subject, develop one and adopt it. If you had unwritten policies that were at odds with the states guidelines, deny that those unwritten policies ever existed. If your board of directors is too sqeamish about this, then go out of business and reconstitute yourself. Hopefully, you can accomplish all of this within your board of directors and not have to go to the membership. Explaining this stuff to the membership will not be a pleasant experience. They will blame the board of directors for failing to take care of business.

Let me give you an example of a minefeld that you must avoid. This is just one minefield, there are many. Some states (and sometimes the IRS) specify that if a business will not allow its workers to work for anyone else, then they are by definition, employees, and not independent contractors. Many organizations have rules (usually unwritten) that their officials cannot work for other organizations. Ergo, they are employees in that state.

Now, you and I know that many assignors don't want their officials working for other assignors. However, when you fill out the paperwork, you must state that each umpire is free to contract with any association that he wants. However, next year when it comes to actual assigning, you can go back to your old way of doing business. Just make sure that each official who works for other organizations gets a few crappy games so that you don't violate the letter of the law. Save the good games for your loyal officials and you will be able to have your cake and eat it too.

You are dealing with government bureaucrats here. They like being saluted and groveled before. They are much less interested in what you actually do after you have saluted and groveled.

Our reconstitution turned out to be a brilliant move. Our members could not tell the difference between the old organization and the new. To the working umpire, everything appeared the same. However, in dealing with bureacracies, we are much more bulletproof. It is very convenient to have the business of umpiring separated from the umpire organization itself. One example: Our board of directors has much less liability now and there is always next to nothing in the union treasury for anyone to tap anyway.

Peter

BTW, for those that don't know me, I work in DC.