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

Scrimmages ...
 

The $150.00 scrimmage fee is actually for two hours, or six periods, whichever comes first. When three officials are assigned we rotate in and out each period, with only two officials working each period for a total of four periods for each individual official by the end of the scrimmage.

How would you know what someone pays the assignor unless they tell you? I know assignors that are paid a flat fee per school. I know assignors that are paid per game. How would we know what that break down and why would we report it if we have no idea what that is? All I know is my check my be $75, I have no idea what other fees are involved unless on the contract. This is almost never discussed openly here.

Peace

John Lewis, One Of The Big Six Leaders ...
 

Just noticed this and remembered that your Mom was active in the civil rights movement. Great way to honor and remember.

I started noticing it because my 1099 did not match my spreadsheet when it came to income from my High School association.

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Only speaking for me. We do not get that information. Even the games on Blue Zebra or Arbiter, we get no additional information about payment for the assignor. I am sure there are other places that might not be the case.

Peace

We've always known and it's always been advertised that the commissioner gets a percentage of all our games, but I was surprised when I saw my 1099 reflected income I never saw.

I don't agree with the characterization that it's my income and then I'm paying the commissioner. It's in the contract that the schools pay our association a certain dollar figure for officials per game. The percentage that goes to the commissioner is money officials never see.



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1099's ...
 

In my case the two never match because only about half the schools we cover use Arbiter, and only Arbiter sends most of us 1099's. We have so many officials and our assigner tries to spread it out so that the same officials don't often work at the same site more than once or twice a season that individual schools (or school systems) don't often meet minimum payments (I believe that it may be $600.00) to generate mandatory 1099's for almost all of us.

I have to explain this to my accountant every year.

I do get that. But we are not in that kind of system. No commissioner assigns a game from any association (we have no such position). We are assigned games by conference or tournament director and if we get a 1099, it might be only the games we get paid online, which in most games are not paid that way yet. All I am saying they do not disclose that information to us. So if I get paid $75 from said school, then that is all I can claim at this point. Not saying that is right, just saying that it is what it is.

Peace

OhioHSAA Rules and Regulations prohibit the charging of Officials an assigners fee.

MTD, Sr.

No Such Thing As A Free Lunch ...
 

Since we all know that assigners wouldn't assign for free, Ohio assigners must be paid by the schools, school systems (towns), conferences (leagues), or the state.

I've known a few recreation level (youth and men), travel, and middle school assigners who have assigned for free, doing it to assign themselves the "choicest" games, or as a supporter of the league or school.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/lowres.cart...sc1632_low.jpg

Bill:

You are corrrect. Assigners are "paid by the schools, school systems (towns), conferences (leagues)".

The OhioHSAA sanctioned assigner who assigns H.S. baseball and softball in the Toledo area also assigns most of the baseball and softball travel tournaments. The OhioHSAA requires him to use a completely separate Arbiter account for him to assign the baseball and softball travel tournaments and he charges the teams and tournaments not the umpires to pay to maintain his second Arbiter account.

MTD, Sr.

Billy:

Your cartoon reminds me of an advertisement that has been on Facebook for the last two weeks by a company in Montana that sells leather goods. It wants to get rid of its entire inventory leather pocket books, laptop cases, shoulder bags, and back packs. These items all normally sell starting at $150 and as much at $350, and the company is giving them way free with the "buyer" only paying shipping and handling: And S&H starts at $85 for the cheapest item with the cost going well over $120 for the more pricey item.

The Mafia could take lessons from this company, LOL!

MTD, Sr.

Not in Michigan. MHSAA is clear. Assigners can collect fee from the league or from the schools, or they can charge officials and assigning fee, but NOT both. Schools also pay officials. Assigners are prohibited from getting pay for the officials and passing it on to the officials.

Personally, I charge the schools a flat fee for assigning.

The only thing we paid for in Illinois was the Arbiter site which was like $7 to use the site. We never paid for any fee for games, at least not that we can account for.

In Indiana, we pay nothing but dues to the association. The Association takes care of all the assigning and the site usages, which used to be Arbiter but now is Eventlink.

Peace

Thanks Mark!

Curious if you know the amount the assignors charge the schools/school systems or towns/conferences?

I should clarify that the only assigning structures I've worked under at the high school level are ones where the "associations" are also the assigners (and in South Carolina all varsity games are assigned by the state office). So I was referring to the fact that a portion of my dues/registration is going to the assigner as compensation. And I know the local associations I have been a member of always charge the schools a booking fee - as they should. If schools don't want to pay to have officials booked, they should book them themselves.

Schools don't self-affiliate with conferences down here so there are no individual league assigners.

I have never written a check directly to a high school assigner as an assigning fee like I have at the college level. At the college level the assigners are most certainly collecting fees from their officials and their league or individual schools (not to mention the camp money).