All officials must be a member of USA Volleyball to work AZ Region or USAV sanctioned events.  They must also complete a background screen by the USAV vendor and be current in their SafeSport Training. 

The annual USAV Membership season is Sept 1 - Aug 31 of each year. Pre-registration for the new season opens in SportsEngine on Aug 1st.  The membership becomes valid on Sept 1. 

New officials and officials moving into Arizona, please contact Stefany Pew in the AZ Region office to get on board with the Arizona Region.

If you are a renewing Member click here to access SportsEngine.

OPERATIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

1. Register for the new season from the AZ Region Join the Region webpage before Dec 15th (Sept 15th if officiating Boys tournaments). Click on the SportsEngine logo that is the Membership Quizzard to purchase the membership.  Each official must be a full adult member and complete and pass a background screen. No other background screen or fingerprint card can be substituted. The background screen is applied for and purchased through SportsEngine after the membership has been purchased. To access SportsEngine, click here or on the appropriate link above.
2. After registering, the membership box in your SportsEngine account will show you a list of items that you need to complete or that have already been completed. 
3. As part of your membership with Safety Requirements, you will have to take the SafeSport Core training or one of the Refreshers.  The Core training is required every 4th season.  Refresher courses are taken in between.
4. Submit the following documents to the Arizona Region Office:
   • Independent Contractor Agreement/Sole Proprietor Waiver; 
   • Official's Code of Conduct;
   •  These 2 documents are required annually. These forms can be accessed on the Handbook page. Don't forget to read and acknowledge the Officials' Division Mileage Policy!
      
5. Don't forget to pay your National Commission dues if you are a National Scorer!

TRAINING REQUIREMENTS

1. Attend a Clinic:

Regional Officials with less than 3 years experience:
Attend the free lecture clinic NPPR (New, Probationary, Provisional and Regional) Officials Clinic normally held in early December each year.

 Listed below are the details:

New, Probationary and Provisional Officials Clinic

• Sat, TBA and/or
• Sun, TBA

The practical training on the court will take place after these clinics each day.  

Regional officials with 3 or more years experience:
Attend the Developmental Referee Clinic, in conjunction with the National Clinics, presented by the National Officials Commission. This clinic is designed for new referees and enhancing the skill levels of veteran non-National referees.  Registration is through VolleyballRefTraining.com.  Look for registration announcements on the Region website Officials landing page late November/early December. Please note: non-National level officials will incur a small registration fee.

2. Attend a wave(s) at the designated December tournament:

For Regional Officials with 3 years or less experience: Attending this clinic satisfies the on-court practical portion of your required annual training. For more information on this clinic, contact Stefany Pew. In the event you cannot attend this practical clinic, you can satisfy your training requirement by officiating your first wave assignment of the season under observation and with no compensation.

For Regional Officials with  more than 3 years experience: Attending this clinic satisfies the "Practical observations and mentoring of Provisional or other Regional Referees as directed by the Referee Director" portion of your requirements to retain your rating. For more information on this clinic, contact Stefany Pew. In the event you cannot attend this practical clinic, contact Jim Feickert, the Referee Training Director, for other options.

3. Complete the required Regional Official's online training curriculum on the USA Volleyball Academy:

To access the USAV Academy, follow this link to login to your SportsEngine account.

• Click on Household, The USAV Academy link should show at the top.  
  • Click on Launch.
  • If there is  more than one person in your Household, it will ask you for the person that is accessing the Academy so that the credentials get credited to the correct person.
  • If the appropriate course is not listed, click on Content Library on the left side menu and select the appropriate course. 

Online Clinic Deadlines: The following dates area deadlines for completing the online training with the AZ Region Officials' Division:

• Veteran Officials (any returning official): Dec 15th
• USAV Lateral Officials transferring from other Regions: Feb 15th
• Failure to attend required training clinics, complete the USAV Academy/VRT modules, or meet testing deadlines for Referee and Scorer tests will result in immediate non-assignment and placed on probation with a "Not in Good Standing" status.
• Please note that if modules/tests in USAV Academy are not fully completed prior to the end of the season, your course registration status will be updated to Cancelled. This is to facilitate registration for the next season's courses in the Fall.

ARBITERSPORTS and ARBITERPAY

To be assigned you must have an account in ArbiterSports.com and have marked yourself Ready to Be Assigned.

To be paid you must have an account in ArbiterPay.com. Link your ArbiterPay.com account to your Arbiter account #108723.

Send Earl Capps, Official's Assignor, an email asking him to invite you into our ArbiterSports group so you can be assigned.  If you are new to the Region you must have both of these accounts to be selected to work and to get paid; once you are on board and registered with AZ Region in SportsEngine (as detailed above), Stefany Pew will let Earl know to send you an invitation to join ArbiterSports.com with a new account.

The Arizona Region has 2 incentive offers to encourage the Arizona officials to work our Region tournaments. Below is the description of each of those offers. All officials' bonus pay will be paid with the last payroll of the girls' tournament season in May/June.

• Hard Worker Bonus - A Hard Worker Bonus of $100 will be paid out for officials that work a minimum of 12 tournament dates (not waves) in one season with a minimum of four (4) matches per date. One No-Show deducts two (2) tournament worked toward the Bonus. A second No-Show removes the possibility of a Bonus for the tournament season. The Bonus will be paid with the last payroll of the girls' tournament season.
• Girls Region Championships Bonus - Each official that works the first two Region Championships tournaments (last Saturday of April and the 1st Saturday of May) will receive a bonus of $50. If they also work the 3rd week of Region Championships (2nd Saturday of May) they will receive an additional $50 bonus for a maximum bonus of $100. They must be available to work the full day of the tournament (it is a shorter schedule than normal tournaments with a built in break as the teams move from site to site) This bonus will be paid with the last payroll of the girls' tournament season. The girls early Region Championships (18s only) and Adults do not count toward this bonus - it is for the April/May Girls Region Championships tournaments only.

The Officials' Division has two (2) policies designed to assist an official in handling misconduct on and off the court. Sanctions in the rule book (DCR) remain the same for on-court teams and club personnel, but the Spectator/Parent Code of Conduct policy applies to aggravated misconduct in the stands or off-court in which violators can be ejected from the playing facility before, during and after the match.

The Region Purple Card Sanction Policy was also created to handle misconduct by parents, spectators and club personnel before, during and after a match. Violators affiliated with a club team can be sanctioned with possible escalation up to ejection from the facility. Read the entire policy here.

Substandard Scoring Teams
Any team that an official finds is deficient in properly scoring a match will be written up on the Officials Tournament Report Form and Pay Sheet detailing specific team name and head head coach. The report goes to the ODC who notifies the Club Director of the team deficiency. The club is then responsible to re-train the team members either by contracting another OD Scorer to hold a clinic and paying the standard clinician fees OR reviewing the USAV Academy training modules. Either way, if they are deficient in their next tournament scoring assignment, they will be penalized eight (8) points on their next scheduled match to play. If the team scores deficiently a third time, they will be penalized one (1) set on their next match.

Mileage Policy Update
There has been some accounting discrepancies discovered by the Region Office as to recording mileage on the Officials Tournament Report Form and Pay Sheet. Here are the following clarifications:

• Although you may be carpooling, the minimum mileage requirement must be met; carpooling does not constitute automatic mileage reimbursement.
• For officials outside the Phoenix metro area, if you sign up to officiate on Saturday Junior play and Sunday Adult play of the same weekend you should write your Round Trip mileage on only one Pay Sheet unless you drove home on Saturday night and returned on Sunday morning. The mileage reimbursement is based on Round Trip mileage actually driven. If there are other officials from your area at your site you also need to car pool to fulfill the reimbursement policy.

Officials Not Available for Tournament Assignment:
Officials will need to make themselves available for at least one tournament wave assignment before February 15th or they will be removed from Arbiter and placed on the "Not to be Assigned" list for three (3) consecutive tournaments. Reinstatement requires contacting the Competition Assignor or the ODC. This policy will be an extension to the current tournament requirement necessary to retain your rating certification, as outlined in our OD Handbook.

USA Volleyball has replaced the VolleyballRefTraining.com website with the Officials' Resources page on their website - https://usavolleyball.org/resources-for-officials/

Payroll is paid bi-weekly from Dec through May. For the months of Sept, Oct & Nov the officials pay is monthly instead of bi-weekly.  This is due to the limited number of events in those months. 

The payroll for officials is transferred to the official's account in ArbiterPay.com. It is up to the official to put pay instructions in their ArbiterPay account - example - to send any money in their account to a designated bank account, to hold the money in the account until it is manually moved to a designated bank account, to load an ArbiterPay debit card for use by the official or to cut a check and mail to the official (this will cost the official $5 per check cut).

All Hard Worker Bonuses, Region Championship Bonuses and any official shirt refunds will be done in the last payroll of the girls' tournament season in May.

New lateral-entry officials from other USAV regions may start on Probation if their Regional or National certification is lapsed. The length of probation depends on reviews of proficiency and adaptability. Advancements from probationary must be approved by the OD Steering Committee.

Lateral-entry officials (transfers) with current certifications and in good standing in their previous region will retain the same rating in the Officials Division (OD).

EXPECTATIONS OF REGIONAL OFFICIALS AND REQUIREMENTS TO RETAIN RATING:

• Attend a designated official's clinic as scheduled by the Referee Training Director
• Receive a passing grade on the USAV A or B written/online exams and correct to 100% with rule references.
• Must be a USAV and Arizona Region regular member in "Good Standing"
• Practical observations, during the current year, receive one (1) passing rating as First Referee and one (1) passing rating as a Second Referee from a USAV National, Jr National or Regional Referee
• Failure to complete the above listed requirements by the published ratings and and test date may result in the forfeiture of your Regional Rating
• Have a good knowledge of the rules, mechanics and techniques
• Knows how to transition as an R2
• Shows awareness of rotational faults
• Shows back row awareness
• Clinic/Clinician work as assigned by the Junior Clinic Training Specialist
• Complete a minimum of 1 score sheet with a deciding set for review by the Scorer Director to retain Regional Scorer rating
• AZ Region Tournaments: must officiate a minimum of 10
• Must also be available to work two of the following five Regional Championships: Boys, Adults, Girls 14s, Girls 16/18s and Girls Open
• Practical observations & mentoring of Probationary or Provisional Referees as directed by the Referee Director

CONSEQUENCE FOR NOT MAINTAINING YOUR RATING:

• Any failure to comply will result in six months probation. In addition the official will be subject to a re-evaluation that will be pass/fail.