Does your association/assignor charge schools/referees

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Multiple Sports

I assign another sport and we bill our county $76 a game for V and $68 a game for JV (per man). Of that I make 8%. As far as billing referees for arbiter, my qusetion is who owns the arbiter. If the individual assigner does, then I can see him billing you. If it is the association's, then I would think the association would roughly bill you approx $5 for arbiter use (that is what arb charges).

IMO, we officials should not have to pay the overhead associated with assigning mechanism chosen to be used. The association is already getting a yearly registration fee and the assigner takes 8% of every dollar I make.

[Multiple Sports]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

IMO, we officials should not have to pay the overhead associated with assigning mechanism chosen to be used. The association is already getting a yearly registration fee and the assigner takes 8% of every dollar I make.

And considering you get hundreds of games at Boo Williams, you should have no problem forking over another $5, unless you are over paying for the food at the over priced concessions stand there ............

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Multiple Sports

And considering you get hundreds of games at Boo Williams, you should have no problem forking over another $5, unless you are over paying for the food at the over priced concessions stand there ............

No Arbiter being using for any of the Boo Williams games.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

IMO, we officials should not have to pay the overhead associated with assigning mechanism chosen to be used. The association is already getting a yearly registration fee and the assigner takes 8% of every dollar I make.

Why does it matter if it is a separate charge vs. added into the general fee?

[Adam]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Why does it matter if it is a separate charge vs. added into the general fee?

When the charge is broken up, there is an impression of being taken advantage of.

That said, it makes sense that fixed costs (the Arbiter fee) would be passed on separately from the variable stuff (per game fees). I would prefer a bit of transparency, though, and my experience is that some assignors are more open than others.

[That Guy]

Sometimes it feels like we get nickle and dimed. There's one assignor I used to deal with who suddenly started using refpay, and charging $1 for each transaction. On top of his normal game fees and Arbiter fee.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Why does it matter if it is a separate charge vs. added into the general fee?

Integrity.

How about don't pass it along at all. That assignor is making money for his/her duties also and the association has a business account, why are the officials the ones that have to foot the bill for this?

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by BadNewsRef

Integrity.

How about don't pass it along at all. That assignor is making money for his/her duties also and the association has a business account, why are the officials the ones that have to foot the bill for this?

Integrity? Really? They're not lying about anything or deceiving anyone. They're charging you something and tell you what it is for.

Now, if they're charging you $10 for something under the premise that it is costing them $10 but they're only paying $4 for it, sure, that is an integrity issue. But for them to make a few dollars off of anything is not an issue of integrity. If it were, every single business in the US would have integrity issues.

For that matter, it doesn't cost you $50 to do a basketball game, so why are you taking the money?

[JRutledge]

I believe most of us are independent contractors and if we do not like the fees we have to pay we can always not work for those people.

Peace

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

Integrity? Really? They're not lying about anything or deceiving anyone. They're charging you something and tell you what it is for.

Now, if they're charging you $10 for something under the premise that it is costing them $10 but they're only paying $4 for it, sure, that is an integrity issue. But for them to make a few dollars off of anything is not an issue of integrity. If it were, every single business in the US would have integrity issues.

For that matter, it doesn't cost you $50 to do a basketball game, so why are you taking the money?

The associations, through their membership, should be able to set those assignors' fees. I've been part of groups where the prevailing attitude was: Take it or leave it. And I'm not fond of that.

I assigned a summer baseball league where I needed 44 umpires at once every week and it was a real nightmare scheduling umpires 36-44. The first 36 were easy and I didn't have to put any time in. Getting those last 8-10 umpires was a freaking nightmare.

That said, at least in the places where I paid an assigning fee directly I knew what it was. Here where I live now, I get paid $60 for a game and have no idea what the assignor gets paid for filling the slots. And the more annoying part about the pay issue is that the schools typically pay timers/scorers more than they pay us -- they're required to pay officials the conference rate, but there's nothing stopping them from paying fellow teachers more than that for working the clock or the book.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by Rich

The associations, through their membership, should be able to set those assignors' fees. I've been part of groups where the prevailing attitude was: Take it or leave it. And I'm not fond of that.


That said, at least in the places where I paid an assigning fee directly I knew what it was. Here where I live now, I get paid $60 for a game and have no idea what the assignor gets paid for filling the slots. And the more annoying part about the pay issue is that the schools typically pay timers/scorers more than they pay us -- they're required to pay officials the conference rate, but there's nothing stopping them from paying fellow teachers more than that for working the clock or the book.

In your day job, do you know how much your boss makes? Is it common to know how much your boss makes?

To a degree, the assignor works for the teams/schools. The schools are hiring them to find officials for their games. Short of some state governing body restricting how the assignor is supposed to operate,. It is no different than a general contractor subbing out work to electricians and plumbers. They don't know how much the general makes and shouldn't care as long as they receive a fair wage for the work they do.

[Raymond]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

In your day job, do you know how much your boss makes? Is it common to know how much your boss makes?

To a degree, the assignor works for the teams/schools. The schools are hiring them to find officials for their games. Short of some state governing body restricting how the assignor is supposed to operate,. It is no different than a general contractor subbing out work to electricians and plumbers. They don't know how much the general makes and shouldn't care as long as they receive a fair wage for the work they do.

In your world are we allowed to care why we are forking over $5 per official for an association/assignor tool?

I thought you said integrity doesn't play a part in this? Now you are saying how does one know what the hidden expenses are. Make up your mind.

Again I ask, why should the officials bear the burden or the association tool? The assignor makes that money back the very first game assigned to each official through the 8-10% assignor's fee. The assignor is making a healthy profit assigning games why can't it be an business expense for him/her or the association itself. Yet to see that answer.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

In your day job, do you know how much your boss makes? Is it common to know how much your boss makes?

To a degree, the assignor works for the teams/schools. The schools are hiring them to find officials for their games. Short of some state governing body restricting how the assignor is supposed to operate,. It is no different than a general contractor subbing out work to electricians and plumbers. They don't know how much the general makes and shouldn't care as long as they receive a fair wage for the work they do.

In many areas, the assignor works for the association. I worked for an association where we had to pay 11% of the game fee to the assignor and he only assigned to the association -- nobody else.

He's not "the boss." The association hires him, so he works for the association. The board decided who will assign and how much he will get -- so it's absolutely the business of membership how much the assignor makes and it should be public. And if the membership doesn't like how much he's getting, they should be able to replace the board with people willing to make the decision to pay the assignor less.

And still, many associations try to hide how much the assignor makes to keep others from organizing and voting the board out of office. Amazes me how much politics are involved.

I recognize that some areas, including where you live, have assignors-for-life who don't seem to answer to anyone and who have the fear of membership. I find that unfortunate.