Football Officials Annoyed No Progress Made A Year After One-Week Walkout
A year after their one-week walkout, area football officials are said to be no better off, for the most part, or any happier than when they decided to strike.
“It’s really a disaster, to tell you the truth,” said Jerry Skogstad, president of the Inland Empire Football Officials Association, when the issue came to a head last year. “We went from 93 to 65 (officials). Everybody’s working two and three games a day so we can provide officials for schools.
“We anticipate losing another 15 next year. I don’t know where it’s going to stop. Guys aren’t going to put up with the crap.”
The central issue in last year’s strike was method of payment. Officials for all high school sports went from being paid by the school at each contest they worked to being paid through their association with the schools paying the associations a lump sum for the season.
The new plan makes it easier for the Internal Revenue Service to tax officials and raises the central issue - are officials independent contractors, as the schools insist, or school employees, as the IRS contends. Washington and several other states are battling the IRS over that issue.
Skogstad said his association cannot recruit new members because it takes officials a couple hundred dollars to get started plus transportation and they don’t receive their first paycheck until several months later.
“How many in their right mind are going to do that?” he asked.
Coaches and school officials declined to discuss the situation.
Officials from neighboring associations worked Spokane area games the week of the strike.
“Some good things did come out of the strike,” Skogstad said. “Now we’re dealing with Ray Hare (Ferris activities director) and Mike Blair (Deer Park athletic director). These guys are sympathetic to our problems.”
Another plus, he said, is young referees are getting experience quickly, although he added, “Some of the crews we’re putting out on these games are scary.
“If they paid us on site, probably in 2 or 3 years we would have our association back where it was when they dropped this bomb on us last year. On flip side, if things don’t change, in 2-3 years, we may have to reject games.”
, DataTimes