As we all know, the assignment of game officials for UIL athletic events is governed by the UIL, which is a subdivision of the University of Texas. Thus, even if indirectly, it is an organization established by the State legislature. I see two possibilities for taking the competing institutions out of the assignment process:
1) The UIL voluntarily creates a fully separate, independent arm within itself, fully staffed and funded, for the purposes of recruiting, training, and assigning game officials to its athletic contests. This 'arm' would report and answer directly to the UIL Director. In this system, the UIL would have to find some way to fund the salaries and benefits of the "arm's" staff, which I have no doubt would be highly distasteful to the member institutions. They would likely require the officials to fund the 'arm' with exorbitant membership dues and fees.
2) The State Legislature creates a completely separate and independent entity, fully staffed and funded, for the purposes of recruiting, training, and assigning game officials to UIL athletic contests. This entity might be a separate agency, reporting/answering to a high level State official, or, similar to the UIL, might be a Legislatively mandated subdivision of another State agency (perhaps a state institution of higher education), reporting/answering to a high level administrator. In this system, (hopefully) the Legislature would provide funding for the salaries and benefits of the staff (a blip in the overall State budget).
As much as I would not like to add to the State's bureaucracy, I am of the opinion that the only way to eliminate the specter of "conflict of interest" (by either game officials or competing institutions) is to totally separate the two. Similar to the NCAA and all major professional sports, the competing institutions would have no direct input on which officials are assigned to work their contests. Officials would then be free to perform their jobs without the concern of getting "scratched" by a team for nothing more than doing their jobs correctly, perhaps to the disadvantage of an institution that finds it difficult to comply with the rules they set for themselves through their governing body.
In both systems above, the officials are insulated from the institutions, to varying degrees.
In system 1), the director of the officiating organization would still be subject to undue influence from the UIL Director (who works at the pleasure of the member institutions). While better than the current system, it doesn't provide full "separation of church and state," so to speak.
In system 2), there is far better separation. The high level government official/administrator (the 'boss'), would not be nearly as likely to exhibit bias toward either institutions or game officials, and would not bother the director of the officiating organization. Effectively, it would take TASO and make it a state agency.
The UIL would not like either system, because they "lose control" of officiating. I don't believe for a moment that they have "control" of us, anyway. But that would certainly be the perception. They would believe that there would be no "accountability" of the officiating community. We can fix that. Without going into great detail, a system for filing and reviewing grievances could be set up, with real consequences for proven officiating errors. Also, allowance for limited pre-season 'scratches' could be set up. With this, they would actually have better "accountability," while eliminating any possibility of conflict of interest related to the "fear" of the scratch.
But, I honestly believe it will take Legislative action to fix this, rightly, once, and for all.
Robert