Nap and I attended the semi-annual captains' meeting last week. It went by pretty quickly. The only issues that were debated were online registration and the possible reintroduction of a health insurance benefit.
Here is a full report for those who are interested.
DC United tickets - Chelsea Bendhert of DC United introduced herself as the new CCSL ticket rep. Feel free to use her - we'll have a link on the league website for tickets. I also have a ticket rep - Chris Frady. (cfrady AT dcunited DOT.com).
New members of the Exec Team - Ricardo takes over for Sanjay. Jessie (female) will take over as Vice Commissioner. Mike of Tsunami will now be treasurer, taking over for Jen. We have a new social chair in Ayman.
Schedule released - Ricardo presented the schedule. The exec team completed the schedule a full two weeks before the season. That's a record in our 6 or so years in this league.
Promotion/ relegation set - Ricardo showed us the tables. We have two new teams in our division. I'll do a post on that shortly.
Referees - Jessie R, our referee assignor, gave a very brief report. We have some referee fines for teams that did not supply one. We are currently in compliance with the policy thanks to Carlos. Seriously, thank him when you have a chance. He loves the work, but it does require some training on the weekends. We pay our refs $55 per match in the center, $40 as an AR. You can make decent money.
Fields - Again this year, we have great fields. All high quality turf and large, except for Trinity, which is a nice grass field. I'm personally unhappy to see Blair HS on the list. And we have a game there. It's far for me. Most fields are in DC. We probably won't be on the new Long Bridge Fields in Arlington because they have really high rates. Even if we got around the county residency issue, it would still be high. We need premium fields, but we also try to keep costs as low as possible. We pay $40/hr for Ridge (a steal) but prevailing rates are usually $150/hour.
Budget - The league's operating deficit is closing. Having lowered field costs and trimmed some other items, we are close to breaking even on the year. We are fine in the spring, but fall costs us a lot because we pay state dues. We were able to cut those dues substantially through negotiations, and then we trimmed them further by cutting the health insurance option last year. 36 teams generate $63,000 in revenues per season. Fields cost $30,000 per season. Referees cost $28,000 per season. State association dues are $20,000 per year, so about $10,000 per season. You can see some of the math now. That is why our team dues went up $100 this season, resulting in slight increases for you as a player. Our league reserve fund, once in the $50K range, is now down to $28,000. That's disappointing to me so we need to keep working on structural changes without reducing the quality of the product. We will NOT be doing 2-man reffing crews or going back to the mall fields.
Health insurance question - Jessie K, the Vice Commissioner, wants to restore the health benefit. She experienced a torn ACL while the league's policy lapsed. Although she had primary health insurance, she still paid $1000 out of pocket. She thinks she could have gotten much of this reimbursed. Here's the situation. Part of state dues pay for supplemental health insurance - in other words, if you get hurt playing in a CCSL game, you can seek reimbursement for qualified health costs after (1) you first try your primary health insurance if you have it; and (2) you pay the $400 deductible. Given our dire budget situation last year, and the fact that we had few claims, we waived this policy for players and saved $2 per person, or about $2000 annually.
Jessie is trying to get the league to restore the coverage. My perspective is, great, let's do that, but let's make sure to increase dues by the corresponding amount (about $20 per team per season) so that there is no budgetary impact on the league. If we simply restore the health insurance coverage without adjusting team fees, the league will pay the $2000 annually and we'll either go back into a deficit situation or we'll have to further cut expenses. Given the reasonable cost per person - $2 per year! - I think we can manage the increase. We'll have a survey and your input will be welcome.
There's the full report.
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