State Referee Committee AGM Greensboro Meeting January 29, 2017 3:00PM SRC Committee Members Present Chair Ken George SRA, SYRA Paul James SAC Cliff Clement SDA Ernie Fisher SDI Abbas Piran NCYSA President Keith Price NCASA President Scott Eisenbraun NCYSA Member At-Large John Alis NCSRA Admin s Alex Rhinehart Marianne MacDonald Excused Absence NCASA/NCYSA At-Large Herk Degraw Call to Order Call to Order by Ken Determine Quorum A quorum of eight (8) was determined. Approval of Minutes Motion to approve minutes by Keith Price and seconded by Paul James. Motion is carried to approve the minutes. Financials Marianne states that NCSRA was considered somewhat in the red at the beginning of the 2016 fiscal year. As of December 31, 2016 NCSRA had obtained a cumulative income of $214,748.02, which is higher than the previous year which was in the amount of $192,000. Major expenses have been cutback. The biggest expense was assessments. The assessment expenditure has changed from $35,000 (2015 fiscal) to$16,000 (2016 fiscal). NCSRA has made over $30,000 in registration fees in first few weeks of January. Expenses were $360.00. Paul states that NCSRA is trending $20,000+ without including the January numbers. NCSRA is on track to increase the amount of income. There will be significantly less high level expenditures in the upcoming year based on how NCSRA approaches clinics and training for the 2018 and 2019 registration years. NCSRA will not plan to have an Annual State Referee Clinic which is around a $40,000 expenditure. The Amount of spending for assessments will be further reduced. There will be no Area Referee Administrator meeting in April because a meeting occurred during the AGM weekend, unless there is a determination that there should be another meeting maybe in October. NCSRA will further discuss ways of advertising referee registration for 2018, by using digital media, newspapers etc. to see if registration numbers can increase.
A small number of personnel will be sent to the Chicago meeting in March due to the cost of travel being around $1,500 per person. As of January 31, 2017 NCSRA has a profit of $25,500 Travel expenditure were adjusted from $10,402.91 (2015 fiscal year) to $2,384.19 (2016 fiscal year) Abbas makes a motion to accept the financials and Keith Price seconds the motion. All are for approving the financials Budget Paul states that registration will probably drop off around March. The surge will occur around February for those that have not recertified. The registration year will close June 30th, if Entry Level Referees wait to register after July 1st 2017, they will receive 18 months of registration. If they register early before July 1st, then the entry level referees will have to turn around and pay another registration. Reports Paul James Paul has previously given both youth and adult associations an annual report NCSRA has uploaded an additional 500 refs since the annual report and will upload 200-300 more within the next week. Paul and Cliff will consult to see which Futsal Referees will need to be uploaded due to an upcoming USSF Futsal Tournament needing referees. The online courses are working well. There are no technical issues. Record keeping keeps changes due to referees needs and these changes require manual changes in the database. The provision of referees to the USYS Region III Championships was successful. North Carolina sent 15 referees and 5 assessors. Jim carpenter has recently resigned as Area Referee Administrator for Area 5 and with the approval by Bob Kepner and Keith Price, Brandon Marion was appointed to replace Jim. Keith Price Stated that Region 3 had a meeting in LA. Keith would like some feedback from the SRC due to one of the major topics of the meeting. The topic was Referees that are used to work the National Presidents Cup should come from the Region 3 Presidents Cup Championships. Paul states that NCYSA declined to send Referees to the Presidents Cup because the association did not want to incur those expenses. The referees for that tournament would now come from the local pool of officials of the hosting site whereas now USYS Region 3 Championship referees are selected the Regional USYS Championship referee pool to attend the Presidents Cup Nationals. Cliff Clement states that the tournament would see the same officials at the national tournament that were seen in the regional tournament. Paul adds that there is a possibility that teams from the same region would have referees from the same region. That would eliminate those referees from being assigned to those particular matches. Cliff says that it would be a drastic drop in the level of officiating. Keith stated that this is something that has not been finalized. Registration for 2018/2019 will have no in person State Referee Clinic. We would provide optional training events for referees. We would however require all Grade 6 and Grade 7A s to attend two weekends of a state run tournament. Those tournaments would be the ODP Tournament in January, the Youth Boys State Cup, the USYS and USASA Region 3 Tournaments in NC, the Adult TaTa s Tournament, the Carolina Adult State Cup, and the Youth Women s State Cup.
NCSRA would reduce the registration fee for all referees to $100.00. The youth would remain $80.00. As of 2018, Referees that are attempting to become State Referees will now have to pay for the assessment cost. NCSRA would cover the travel cost, but the assessment will be a flat fee of $80.00 per assessment. Presently too many resources are being utilized, and we will make the referee self invest. Grade 7A s will no longer require an Assessment. Not requiring 7A s to obtain an assessment would eliminate the cost which would be $8,000 if one hundred 7A s needed an assessment. NCSRA will need to decide who is going to the Utah Arbitersports meeting. Arbiter currently programs certain things for us and we would need to see if our current program could be migrated into their new Super Group Format safely or if we need to remain the way we are now. Computer value equals $0.00 after 3 years from purchase. NCSRA will be budgeting ($15,000 - $20,000) from July 1, 2017 to incorporate replacement costs of laptops for NCSRA staff. The current staff laptops will be returned and kept at the NCSRA office for teaching purposes and training sessions if they are still functional. Staff members will be able to purchase their laptop at the minimal cost of their laptop s present assessed value. NCSRA will also need to develop or maintain a capital reserve so we don t get surprised by something. Paul would like to keep in the budget an unexpended sum of $10,000 for a couple of years. Once $30,000 is gained it would be used for capital expenditures and then maintained at that level. Paul States that with the 2018 registration changes, NCSRA will need to send out a memo stating that effective this date any assessment after this for 2018, the assessment will need to be paid by the referee Ken, asked if Paul would like to put off the 2018 registration changes into a future meeting motion. Paul says he believes we should not put it off and vote today so we can inform the referees as quickly as possible. Paul makes a motion to 1) Reduce the registration fees for all Referees Grade 7 or above to $100, and 2) any assessment requirement will now cost $80.00 per assessment. There would be no negative financial impact. State Referees would be paying at total $260 in fees. There would be a net gain from doing this of $125.00/State Referee Candidate. Ernie seconds the motion. All in favor, and the motion carried. Paul clarifies that the referees will begin paying for their assessments as soon as he creates the Assessment Payment Registrations. Abbas Piran The 2018 and 2019 online registration instructional material will be updated this spring. This is due to the major changes to the Laws of the Game. We will be incorporating those changes in our courses. At the same time, we will continue to streamline our courses to reduce duplications and to make it easier for our referees. Online courses will remain our minimum requirements for certification. We will encourage our instructors and ARAs to hold instructional in person clinics in their area as needed throughout NC. All Futsal registration and coursework is online. NCSRA will have Futsal face to face to clinics.
NCSRA has agreed to provide educational opportunities in the 8 referee areas of the state. These clinics would be around 2 hours per clinic. Our registration numbers are up this year compared to last year. As of January 27th NCSRA has 839 people who have paid their registration but have not completed their requirements. This is due to procrastination, but the numbers will increase. Keith asks if there is a possible way to proactively get the referees to complete their certification requirements. Cliff stated that we do offer a discount if referees registered prior to October 1st. The amount of procrastination and laziness by the referees is a large problem. Paul says the ARAs did discuss increasing the fee for late registrations to maybe $100.00 to get their attention. Paul suggests that NCSRA could impose a double late fee (Oc1 - Dec 20th) after Dec 20th, the fee goes to $100.00. There could also be implementation that officials must complete their coursework within 90 days, but monitoring could be an issue. There was a request to integrate Grade 9 referees again. But the ARA s determined that reimplementation was not possible due to admin and assigning issues. NCSRA will continue to assist with the recreational assignors, by coming up with new ideas. Ernie Fisher There was discussion of removing assessment requirements for Grade 7A. State Referees will now pay for their assessments. Assessments will be geared towards the State Referees. This means that all of North Carolina s State Assessors will be state qualified. The Grade 7 Assessors will not be utilized as much. NC has a number of State Assessors throughout the state, which is a good thing. There are several individuals that are wishing to become assessors, but they did not obtain the State Referee Level. This will reduce them to mentor training positions. The assessment program will be reduced significantly in expenditures. The Weekend Assessment Program NCSRA has allows Instructors, Grade 7 Assessors, and State Referees to go to any site and give feedback. The lower ranked assessors can still be used here, but the WAP program will be really intended towards the higher ranked Assessor. There will also be targeted mentoring and identification in the pool of Grade 7 Referees. Our State run tournaments can be used to identify Grade 7As. NCSRA had formal assessments defined by Developmental, Maintenance and Upgrade. Developmental has been removed and replaced with an invoice with free feedback. The maintenance and upgrade assessments will still be used. Cliff Clement There is still the same number in turnover in assignors where two or three clubs will need a new assignor. The Annual Assignor Recertification clinic will move towards being online based. By April, Assignors can recert online. New Assignors will require some class time in the form of a physical meeting or maybe online go to meetings. This will be ideal, as typically NCSRA would only be training three or four persons. The online recertification course would serve as a refresher course for those persons. The State Assignor Coordinator position is becoming more hands on. The past fall season Cliff assisted assignors with finding referees for numerous tournaments.
There are areas that are complaining about the Grade 9 Rec course referees. What seems to be driving that mindset is that those assignors are short referees. Cliff believes that assignors seem to wait for the referees to come to them. Assignors are not recruiting for referees. ARAs would need to devise recruiting in NC, and do a better job recruiting. The NCSRA Office will need to ensure that Entry Level Referees are provided with an Assignor. Referees don t recertify because they aren t being used by assignors. NCSRA must be proactive. Keith Price asked how a referee gets on an assignor s list. Cliff and Paul describe how they are added to an assignor s scope within the Arbitersports system. Cliff asks if there is a way we can adjust the assignor number field. Paul stated that currently it is not possible. Paul would like to sit down with Arbiter to see how being a super group will affect NCSRA if we use it. Old Business New Business Open Discussion Determination of next State Referee Committee Meeting Online Meeting 8:00PM 4/25/2017 Adjournment A Motion to adjourn was made by Keith Price and was seconded by Paul James All are in favor and the meeting is adjourned.