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Football Officiating => Texas Topics => Topic started by: rickref on December 05, 2013, 08:56:28 AM
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Where is your chapter at in relation to paid members this time of year compared to last several? We are down significantly compared to 4 years ago. I am wondering what it is like else where.
We are facing issues from anywhere to job demands to lack of family support and guys being relocated by work.
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Ours are up. However, even with increased numbers there still seems to be an issue covering subvarsity for a variety of reasons. We even stopped sending 4 person crews to places that would pay for them until we could fill all the other places with at least 3 guys.
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Ours are up as well but had problems covering games especially out in the outskirts. Games that normally you are lucky to find had only two or three officials when they should have had 4. I don't know if it was the new mileage rules or what. And don't get me started on that! :-X
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My opinion is that subvarsity pay has not kept up with (inflation, time, etc.) as its basically the same amounts it was 5-7 years ago (minus the new travel fee). But the games are longer because more teams are passing.
As far as numbers, I think the larger chapters are steady or have a few more but the smaller, more rural, chapters are seeing fewer numbers. That's what I'm hearing, anyway.
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We seemed to have a harder time covering subvarsity this year. I imagine going to the metro rate made it so some officials did not want to travel nearly as far to cover games. I certainly had no interest in putting an extra 60+ miles on the car when there were games closer to home and work that paid about the same travel fee.
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I live way out of metro SA so I always look for games in my area. We are required to work at least 5 Thursday SV games, and that's what I usually work. We usually work 2 and 3 man crew out here in the hinterlands because no one wants to come out this far. Pay does need to be increased. $35 for each middle school game needs to be bumped to $40, like it was a few years ago. $45 for freshman and $50 for JV. Some JV games go longer than varsity game since they work 10 and 11 minute quarters, sometimes 12, and there is a lot of passing. I really think middle school should have a 10 to 12 minute running clock per quarter and the last 2 minutes of each half can be a regular clock. Some of those games, where there is a lot passing and usually crappy passing, can go over and hour and a half. Way too long for kids that age.
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In Connecticut, we get $60 per game for 3 man crew youth games, $50 if it is 4 man. Subvarsity/middle school games pay $47.36 for 4 man and $57.96 for 3 man. Varsity pays $89.12 for 5 man plus about $60 for the Clock operator/Timer.
In Rhode Island, the subvarsity fees are similar, but the Varsity fees are lower, only $80 per game.
There is no travel allowance in either state, but the longest I have to drive is 80 miles each way. Typically the games I get are 20 miles or less.
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Some of those games, where there is a lot passing and usually crappy passing, can go over and hour and a half. Way too long for kids that age.
I had two different 8th grade games this year (one school was involved in both) that were over 2 hours. One had 96 total points and one had 104.
Nothing like getting off the field at 10 o'clock for an 8th grade game.
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We seemed to have a harder time covering subvarsity this year. I imagine going to the metro rate made it so some officials did not want to travel nearly as far to cover games. I certainly had no interest in putting an extra 60+ miles on the car when there were games closer to home and work that paid about the same travel fee.
How was it decided to go to the metro rate in your chapter? We had the whole chapter vote and it was unanimous for non-metro.
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How was it decided to go to the metro rate in your chapter? We had the whole chapter vote and it was unanimous for non-metro.
We voted and it went metro by a good majority. For me, I haven't noticed much of a difference but I know that isn't true for everyone.
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Didn't know there was a choice.
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Our numbers are up but we do have a problem covering sub varsity also.
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Didn't know there was a choice.
Yes. UIL 1204 states that each chapter of each sport must decide 30 days prior to the first game what method the chapter decides to use. Either Metro or Non-Metro and whatever is chosen will apply to all schools.
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I don't know if we voted to go Metro or not, but we already had flat-rate agreements with the nearby schools, so all the metro rate did was make those flat rates a bit more complicated to calculate.
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I guess this statement will make me anti kid and anti school but whatever:
SUPPLY AND DEMAND
If they want to play football and have 3 officials or 4 officials at their games then they can pay me to get my BUTT out there to call the game. If a certain district or private school wants 5 man crews then they can pay for it. If a pee wee will pay me $300 to be out there for 4 hours then that is the market rate. The fact is that schools dont give a crap about subvarsity.
I still envision a time where we will auction ourselves on EBAY or have a reverse auction for services.
I am starting the bidding at $4500 for my 7man crew, 3 chain crews, and 2 timers (including travel). For 2 games (your place and their place next year). We have X amount of years officiating, please go to www.cobysawesomecrew.com to read more about our crew.
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I don't know if we voted to go Metro or not, but we already had flat-rate agreements with the nearby schools, so all the metro rate did was make those flat rates a bit more complicated to calculate.
How were schools legally able to pay a flat rate? 1204 is the only pay scale that schools can pay. Our basketball chapter didn't give us a choice they dictated that we would be metro.
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If I ain't mistaken, that is exactly what started a whole lot of s***
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How were schools legally able to pay a flat rate?
It had "always" been that way. I don't know how long "always" was in this case, but the flat rate went from $5 to $7.50 to $10 to $12 over the course of 10 years or so.
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Everything must be per 1204, no side deals.
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Everything must be per 1204, no side deals.
Exactly. Chapter must be "metro" or "non metro".
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Is there another example in the great state of Texas where the government controls how much you get paid? I can not think of another example. They set minimums in some cases but not mandated fees. Please someone let me know what other "job pay rates" are set by the government? I am sure some other exist I am just not aware of any.
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I am not understanding this Either or Metro/non metro.
For schools inside the radius zones (max of 40 miles from a center point which I thought was determined per chapter) the mileage fee was attached to the games worked (12,15,18).
For schools outside, they paid miles (varsity) or did whatever they were going to do for subvarsity. They would pay up to 3 vehicles on a sliding scale per mile basis.
Is this not how it worked in every chapter?
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That's how Zebra-Ware charges mileage for us (except when the game is scheduled at a field with no address in the system).
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I am not understanding this Either or Metro/non metro.
For schools inside the radius zones (max of 40 miles from a center point which I thought was determined per chapter) the mileage fee was attached to the games worked (12,15,18).
For schools outside, they paid miles (varsity) or did whatever they were going to do for subvarsity. They would pay up to 3 vehicles on a sliding scale per mile basis.
Is this not how it worked in every chapter?
A chapter to uses Metro will get the 12, 15, or 18. Anything outside of 40 miles will revert to the standard mileage and up to 3 vehicles that you mentioned on a sliding scale.
A chapter that decided to use Non-Metro will get the standard mileage with the sliding scale per mile for all games no matter what the distance is for up to 3 vehicles.
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The metro plan worked well for us this year. We determined with schools were within 20, 30 and 40 mile radius from the center of SA, and then those beyond 40 miles. It wasn't all that difficult to implement and I think $12, $15 and $18 (or whatever the exact amounts are) are generous as a per-official adder for mileage. We had a couple of times in our varsity games where we had to take two cars on very long trips and the schools had to problem paying the two-car rate.
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The problem I have with the new metro rate is I live southwest of Fort Worth. The majority of my varsity games were northwest of Fort Worth. So a game that is 104 miles from my house one way is only 35 from the so called center of the chapter. So I received 18 dollars fro traveling 208 miles. and that happen on 4 games. They tell me it equals out when I do a close game and get mileage but it doesn't. A game 20 miles from me that's outside of the radius I would get 22 dollars for. They mileage for 1 vehicle to the 208 mile game should have been 116. That math doesn't compute. Even if you use the 2 car rate its 89. I like the idea of a set rate but it doesn't work for the ones that don't live in the center of the chapter. My total mileage for 9 varsity games was 1896 miles my compensation was between 300-400 dollars it should have been closer to 1000 by last years rates
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My predicament is worse than yours. The center of my chapter's metro is about 60 miles from my house. So, when I work within 40 miles, I get hosed. But, that's just the cost of working games. When I work games on the other side of my metro, when I get to use non-metro rate, I do pretty well because I'm paid portal to portal, not from the center of my metro area. So, they are paying me to get to town, and drive right through it. It doesn't fit everyone's situation, but it isn't bad.
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Actually the whole 1204 is screwed up, but I guess it is what it is!
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Back when I started, you didn't get any travel, etc, for in-town games. Only one driver got mileage out of town and it wasn't much. Things now are better than they were back then.
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Back when I started, you didn't get any travel, etc, for in-town games. Only one driver got mileage out of town and it wasn't much. Things now are better than they were back then.
Doc, back when you and I started they had bigger cars which could carry our big butts!
The main thing about 1204 is the schools (i.e clerks) do not understand it that well and generally screw it up.
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I agree about the cars back then. They were much bigger.
What we did to fix this issue is create a "contract," although TASO doesn't like that term (it most definitely IS a contract for services), that automatically calculates the pay of officials based on the site. It was done in Excel. You just state where you were headed and it gives you the proper metro mileage. The non-metro is portal to portal, so the driver would have to enter their mileage and indicate how many drivers and it will auto calculate what the drivers will receive. This was done to create uniformity for the AP personnel at the ISD's.