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. Register and attend the National Officials Clinic scheduled for TBD at 7 pm (the USAV Advancement Clinic is at 5 pm). The location is at AZ Region VB Facility, 2220 S. Country Club Dr, Ste 108, Mesa, AZ  85210. Attending this clinic satisfies the Officials' Division annual clinic requirement for Junior Nationals and Nationals. Please remember that this is the only local National Clinic available to our Officials' Division. Pre-registration in SportsEngine saves you some money.
2. USAV is updating their training and will let us know when it is ready.  More information soon.

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

   • Click on Household.  The USAV Academy link should now be at the top of the page.  
     • When you click to enter the USAV Academy, it will ask who in the Household you are accessing the Academy for.
     • If the appropriate course is not listed, click on Content Library on the left side menu and select the appropriate course. 
3. 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.

MENTORING/GIVE-BACKS

As a National level official, you will be required to complete two (2) Region Give-backs before March 1, 2025. These Give-backs can be satisfied by working 2 junior score/ref clinics, mentoring, rating, or evaluating at the designated December pre-season tournament, Cactus Classic or any wave at a Region tournament as coordinated by the December pre-season tournament Head Referee TBD, Cactus Classic Head Referee Ron Pelham, or Competition Assigner Earl Capps. (See Rating Requirements below for details). In the event you cannot satisfy this requirement contact the Officials Division Coordinator Earl Capps immediately.

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).

ArbiterPay holds our money for 5 work days before it is available to be transferred and available to the official. 

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.
• 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). 
• The length of probation depends on reviews of proficiency and adaptability.

Junior National/National Official:

• Attend the National clinic
• Submit annual Application and dues to USAV Official’s Division
• Must be a USAV and Arizona Region regular member in “Good Standing”
• Volunteer to teach at 2 Junior Training clinics, as a give-back to the  AZ Region. In the event an official does not serve as a clinician at 2 Junior Training Clinics, the official must then volunteer 2 waves per season in, mentoring and education/preparation of Officials and Candidates as directed by the Referee Training Director
• Complete the National exam and pass with at least  90%
• Must complete all required online clinics as given by the National Officials’ Commission.
• AZ Region Tournaments:  must officiate a minimum of 8
• Must also be available to work two of the following five Regional Championships:  Boys, Adults, Girls 14’s, Girls 16/18 and Girls Opens.

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.
• Probationary Official: Probationary officials are defined as officials that are new to USA Volleyball, with no, little, or minimal experience in USAV mechanics, signals, match protocols, and related processes and procedures. This would include officials from other venues or organizations, such as high school or college.