Keep Referee Fee Debate Off Of The Playing Fields

My colleague here at The Spokesman-Review, Dave Trimmer, said it best.

“I know about ERAs, not the IRS,” he mused while trying to make heads or tails of the strike by local football officials.

No amount of justification for their action can explain to your eighth-grader, his head hanging down, why his football game has been canceled.

Admirably, local junior highs came up with a contingency plan and coaches and teachers came forward to officiate. A day late, the games went on. And you know what? Things went just fine.

The football officials association has taken exception to the way that alphabet soup bureaucracies have mandated they be paid.

They say they are independent contractors who should receive a check on site as has been customary and be responsible for paying their own taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service wants them to be subject to withholding through their association and has told the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association so. That’s where trouble brewed.

School districts have already paid the Inland Empire Football Officials Association a lump sum to be dispersed to referees by their own organization.

School officials say they would be willing to pay in any manner in order for the games go on.

If adults from the IRS, WIAA and IEFOA want to argue over money, let them do so on their own time and away from the arena.

Denying athletes a chance to play is unconscionable. Using kids to further an agenda is abhorrent.

You don’t need alphabet soup to spell that out.

, DataTimes