Local Control, Local Control, Local Control---
That is the educational buzz word that we need to focus on when speaking with ISD types. They love local control of everything except officiating. Curriculum, teacher pay, calendar, Stadiums, etc. etc. Currently the District X can pay their coach/AD/ticket taker/EMT/Security whatever they would like to pay them. District Y can pay theirs whatever they would like to pay them. So for whatever reason the only pay that is set by the state is "officials".
UIL needs to either set Cops, coaches, AD, ticket taker, trainer pay or deregulate our pay. I am most disappointed in TASO with never bringing this up to them and flat out asking them why everything else is local control and not us.
I get the budget argument. Unfortunately, we would have to give up the "gate" aspect of our pay if we are to help them with the budget argument. Why do we as an association care about gate like it is our golden unicorn? If we have to give up gate (for non playoff games) in order to get a 200% raise we need to get rid of gate.
Supply and Demand has been fixing problems in this country for a long time. We have adjusted every other variable out there except for pay. Until we can let pay move to market levels we will never be able to remove pay as a reason for the officiating shortage.
There are already "Have's" and "Have Not's" in high school sports. I don't see why it should be any different with officials.
There is a perception that uncapped officiating rates could impact the fairness of the contest. You are a smart guy...surely you can see this. The cop or the ticket taker can't really influence the outcome of the contest. None of us would want to see some of the more favored crews in the state become further enriched by marketing themselves as better than others and thus "worth the extra money". Furthermore, none of us would want to get into a negative bidding war of getting to work Katy vs Spring Westfield or Allen vs Cedar Hill for $20 a game...just for the "experience" of working a big game in a big stadium. If you want a dose of this, just go work the UIL baseball tournament where you'll lose $200 if you only work one game, and up to about $600 if you are "lucky" enough to work until Saturday!
I think the local control issue could be resolved by each district publishing their pay rates in advance (or each chapter establishing the rates) and that they be consistently paid regardless of weather, attendance, or playoff status.
The forecast for officiating and umpires in Texas is looking pretty stormy. TASO's "head in the sand" approach is a recipe for failure. The UIL's willingness to further dig into the pockets of the officiating community will also prove to be a significant mitigating factor when we hit full crisis mode.
