Assigning Fee (Officials or Schools)?
 

Had an interesting question posed this week and wanted to get some feedback

1. What is the "assigning fee" for the games you work?
Our association is 6% at the end.

2. Do the officials or the schools pay this "fee"?
Our association, the 6% comes out of the final official's check.

So why do the officials pay the assigning fee and not the schools pay that fee?

For both scholastic and rec basketball, we have no assigner fee, and assigners are paid by the leagues. Same for scholastic soccer; I haven't refereed club soccer for decades, so I have no idea how that works. One major baseball assigner gets a fee from his leagues and also charges umpires $50 (as a result of this double-dipping, I no longer work for him).

In Illinois, we do not get assigned by any association. The assignors that we work for are conference assignors which is a fee they pay them, not directly associated with game fees. I cannot speak for what others do, I just know it never comes up. And every conference gives a pays the assignor fees differently.

Peace

We’ve had this discussion before from time to time. The setup is entirely a matter of local custom and preference (mostly custom). I’ve seen it done three ways:

1. Percentage per game fee as the OP suggests. 6% is common. Where I work right now it’s 10%, but I can’t complain too much because our state and association fees are very reasonable.

2. Flat rate “buy in” at the beginning of the season. Usually equivalent to one varsity game fee or something like that.

3. Schools and/or conferences pay the assignors explicitly. Officials aren’t burdened directly.


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Or a combination of all of the above. Even still you have to consider game fees, travel fees, dues, and other factors all in combination. Then, you have to consider what the responsibilities of the assignor are. What may look high to some, might actually be lower than it appears once all the factors are considered.

I would add that the math (if not the psychology, and the labor law implications) comes out the same:

1) School pays referee $70 and assigner $5
2) School pays referee $75 and referee pays assigner $5
3) School pays association $75. Association pays referee $70 and assigner $5.

Also has tax implications. We (officials) forfeit a 10% assigning fee/game in my HS association--8% to commissioner, 1% to secretary, 1% to either treasure or legal fund, I forget which. However, when we get our 1099, the entire game fees are included as our income. IMO, we should only be showing 90% of our game fees as income, and the assigning fee should show up as income for the respective EB members who are actually receiving that money.

I, of course, itemize the assigning fees in my expenses, but not everyone pays attention to such details when filing taxes.

Raymond great catch on your part!

My argument to the question posed is much the same.

If you have the schools pay the fee, they will lower the game fee to cover it.
If you pay the assignors out of the higher game fee, you come out about the same.

Every assigner, college and high school, I've ever received games from collects fees from both officials and the schools.

If the schools don't want to pay for an assigner then they can hire their own officials.

Tax law says otherwise. The IRS wants to know the gross income and then wants to see your expenses as a reduction from that total. The association fees taken out of the game fees is an expense, not a reduction of gross income.

It comes out the same in the end, but the IRS wants the details.

It may come out the same, but the variations are not always equal comparing different areas. I know assignors make a widely different amount of money depending on the area.

Agreed. I was not trying to make any comparison across geographies.

Assignment Fees ...
 

For my little corner of Connecticut, for all public high schools, all Catholic high schools, many middle schools, and all private prep schools: schools, conferences, and the state do not pay assignment commissioners, they just pay game fees to officials who work their games.

My local board "assignment fee" is 7% of my total earnings (games and scrimmages). On top of this, I also pay annual dues of approximately $100.00.

Note that the 7% "assignment fee" doesn't go to our assignment commissioner, it goes into my local board's general fund. The general fund then pays our assignment commissioner. He's contracted to be paid $28,800.00 for 2020-21, assigning approximately 320 officials to about seventy high schools (boys, girls, varsity, junior varsity, freshman), and many middle schools.

Connecticut 2020-21 game fees (two person games):
Varsity Fee: $100.07
Sub Varsity Fee: $64.93 (junior varsity, freshman, middle school)
Scrimmage Fee: $150 (3 officials $50 each, 2 officials $75 each)

Interesting that the scrimmage fee includes an option for 3 man, but Connecticut uses 2 man!

Dewey, Cheatem & Howe ...
 

Every year my accountant uses information that I provide him to complete Form 1040 Schedule C : Profit or Loss From Business. He asks that I provide him with total officiating income, total officiating expenses including dues, fees, uniform, shoes, and equipment, and my total round trip officiating mileage. Not sure what he does with the information provided, he's the accounting expert.

https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.C...=0&w=241&h=158