Schools question raises for high school sports officials as uncertainty looms from COVID-19

When sports officials and referees received pay raises starting for the 2020-21 school year statewide, local administrators questioned if their schools could afford it.

And that was before the coronavirus cast a fog of uncertainty over education budgets and high school athletics for the coming fall.

With the possibility of severe cuts to sports revenues for the upcoming school year, administrators are even more doubtful they can afford to pay sports officials the raise both sides agreed they deserved.

“You can’t spend money you don’t have,” said David LaRosa, Lee County Schools’ director of athletics and activities.

Ref rates rise

The Florida High School Athletic Association announced in January that it is raising the maximum fees officials can be paid starting in 2020-21. The FHSAA sets the maximum rate but individual school districts and officials associations negotiate contracts. Last year all high schools in Collier and Lee counties paid sports officials the FHSAA maximum.

The raise came after the South Gulf Football Officials Association, which officiates games for all Lee County high schools, staged a brief work stoppage over their pay. Several preseason games in Lee County were canceled, and the refs only returned to work after a group of private business owners donated the amount of the proposed raise to the SGFOA.

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Currently, neither school district has a contract with officials for the upcoming academic year.

When accounting for travel fees, officials would get between a 17.8-percent raise (wrestling) and 42.3-percent raise (football) depending on the sport.

Previously schools paid officials travel fees in addition to their game rates. Collier County paid $13 per official in all sports, while Lee County paid around $50-$60 per crew depending on the sport and distance.

Those travel fees are included in the new FHSAA max rates. So while the pay for a football official goes from $65 to $111 (a 70.8 percent increase), in Collier it’s really going from $78 to $111 (42.3 percent increase) and similar in Lee.

LaRosa estimated the raises would cost an additional $12,000-$15,000 for each of Lee County’s 20 public and charter high schools. Collier County Public Schools coordinator of interscholastic activities Mark Rosenbalm said the raises could cost up to $10,000 for each of the district’s eight high schools.

‘Bad timing’

The rates were decided by the FHSAA’s officials compensation task force comprised of five officials, five athletic directors, and four FHSAA staff members.

On Tuesday, roughly four months after deciding on the raises, the task force held an online meeting. The group was reconvened over concerns about how school districts would pay officials more money while facing a budget shortfall.

Athletic budgets at Southwest Florida schools are largely self-funded. Lee County gives its high schools $50,000 each to pay for event workers, transportation and officials. Collier County also gives its schools a stipend, but those amounts are a fraction of the money it takes to run sports programs.

Athletics are run on ticket sales – mostly from football – and donations from sponsors and fundraising.

School administrators expect all of those revenue sources to be slashed significantly this fall.

If football games are played, they might be played with no fans because of social distancing measures aiming to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. Or, schools might have to limit fan capacity. Even if everything is back to normal on Friday nights, many fans might stay away.

That could mean losing tens of thousands of dollars in football ticket sales and parking fees.

“We anticipate (ticket sales) are going to be at least 50 percent of what they normally are,” LaRosa said. “There’s going to definitely be a shortfall.

“We’re really going to be in bad shape if they say, ‘You can play games but you can’t have spectators.’ Then you have all the expenses of a game and no revenue coming in.”

The second big source of income – sponsorships and fundraising – will suffer as local businesses and donors deal with their own financial hardships due to the coronavirus.

“We’re not going to get all the revenue we’re used to getting,” Rosenbalm said. “I think the officials deserve a raise, but this is bad timing.”

School districts overall expect their budgets to be cut. Public schools get money from the state, which relies partially on sales tax and tourism dollars – both sources of revenue that have dropped significantly due to the coronavirus.

Lee Schools budget director Kelly Letcher said the district could lose $20 million in funding. That could mean smaller stipends for athletic departments and thus even less money to pay officials.

Officials’ expectations

John Mantica, president of the SGFOA, is on the FHSAA official compensation task force. He said no action was taken at Tuesday’s virtual meeting, that all sides would have to wait and see where sports were at in the fall.

“No change was made,” FHSAA spokeswoman Ashton Mosley said in an email to the Naples Daily News. “Therefore, all maximum fees remain as previously agreed upon by all members of the task force and it is up to all schools, school districts and officials associations to negotiate their future contracts as they see fit.”

The local official's associations expect to receive the FHSAA maximum rate whenever sports resume.

The reason the SGFOA held out last August was because it didn’t receive a promised pay raise, Mantica said. The Lee County officials returned to work because they were promised their compensation would be addressed for 2020-21.

The Greater Naples Officials Association works games in eight sports for Collier County’s public and private schools. The GNOA did not threaten a work stoppage last season, president Robb Mackett said, because they expected a raise for next year.

“We were all promised, from the FHSAA to the school district, that we would get a significant increase,” Mackett said. “We went along (last year). The expectation level from all our officials is that we will get the full maximum pay raise.”

Some ADs around the state have raised the idea of the officials working under last year’s rates, despite the FHSAA’s raise, while schools wait out the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Mantica said that to even consider not working for the full FHSAA amount his group would need to see full detailed financial reports from the schools.

“I think schools will have a serious problem – not just with the SGFOA but all over the state in all sports – with officials that do not want to roll back next year’s rates, not even a portion of them,” Mantica said. “(The raises) have been put off and put off and put off.”

Mackett did his own calculation on how much the raises would cost the schools. He estimates it would be around $5,500 more per school next year – far less than LaRosa’s up-to-$15,000 estimate.

Last season the GNOA used seven-person officiating crews at most football games. Paying $33 more per ref (when accounting for travel fees) for six home games (five regular-season plus a preseason or playoff game) would add $1,386 in officials’ fees for a school.

Back to negotiations

The schools and the officials currently are working on contracts. Typically negotiations begin in February, but the coronavirus and the closing of schools pushed the timeline back.

The GNOA has sent the Collier Schools its proposal, which includes the maximum rate per official. Mackett said he already has signed contracts with a few private schools paying the max rate, though he declined to say which schools.

The SGFOA also has submitted a contract proposal to Lee Schools requesting maximum game fees. However, the SGFOA only covers football. LaRosa and other Lee administrators have to negotiate contracts with a separate officials’ organization for each sport.

Mantica said the SGFOA has a signed contract with DeSoto County Schools, which the local officials are covering this season, for the maximum FHSAA rates.

Both Mackett of the GNOA and Rosenbalm of Collier Schools said the groups have a good relationship, and neither expected a contentious negotiation.

“We’re reasonable. They’re reasonable,” Rosenbalm said. “We’ll make it work.”

There might be less optimism in Lee County, at least when it comes to football.

In August, the discussions between the SGFOA and the school district became contentious. Administrators floated the idea of suing the officials for breach of contract. The FHSAA revoked the SGFOA’s sanction for its work stoppage, later returning the sanction once the group agreed to work.

In the end, the refs and the schools never agreed to a new contract or raise – the SGFOA officials only returned to work because of the private donation to subsidize their fees.

The Collier and Lee school districts both have their attorneys reviewing the officials’ proposed contracts and expect to meet with the groups in the coming weeks.

“They’ll have to be some hard decisions,” LaRosa said. “A lot of people don’t understand how athletics are funded inside a school budget. We’re in tough times right now. If people don’t realize that, then shame on them.”