Anonymously contributed:
It's is too early to say how much the Las Conchas Fire will cost Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to laboratory spokesman Kevin Roark.
Some 13,000 LANL employees returned to work Wednesday.
"People are just now filling out their timecards for last week," Roark said, adding that there is a cost code for fire-related activities.
On the most elementary level, assuming a $2.5 billion annual budget and dividing that by the 260 days in a normal work year, there is a daily cost of $9.6 million — or $58 million for the six missed days.
But there is not a single number on which everyone agrees for the lab's annual income. Many operations run 24/7, with at least some of them continuing or even costing more during an emergency.
"The last time the lab calculated the cost of a 'snow day,' the number was about $3 million," Roark said.
After the 2000 Cerro Grande Fire, the lab received $341 million from the U.S. Energy Department, some of which went toward replacing damaged buildings and some for other infrastructure and improvements. It is not clear yet how much of the laboratory's losses, if any, can be passed along to sponsors.
9 comments:
Don't worry, LANS will eventually pass *all* the costs associated with the fire on to lab sponsors, whether they like it or not. DOE/NNSA are not about to help LANL cover for this fire disaster like they did back in 2000.
Can LANL take a $58 million hit on top of other cuts and budgetary freezes and not reduce the head count? We'll soon see.
Can LANL take a $58 million hit on top of other cuts and budgetary freezes and not reduce the head count?
Most of the cost is cash flow that was going to happen anyway. Scope is just going to get trimmed to accommodate for lost time.
Can LANL take a $58 million hit on top of other cuts and budgetary freezes and not reduce the head count?
Most of the cost is cash flow that was going to happen anyway. Scope is just going to get trimmed to accommodate for lost time.
July 11, 2011 10:34 PM
Your dreaming. In the environmental program at LANS, there was no scope reduced to meet existing 2011 PBIs. We will work harder and faster with the same resources (i.e. people). There are pushing people to the threshold of safety. This will result in more Injuries and lost time, and possibly fatalities.
LANS has decided to dump the costs for the fire on lab programs. G&A taxes are going to be raise by 2% and the increase will be done retroactively all the way back to Oct 1st, 2010!
You only thought you had enough money left for your project's deliverables. Get ready to pay up! All projects will be hit up for cash, including Work For Others (WFOs).
There are been heavy snow years at Los Alamos when the lab used up 5 or 6 days of "Report Pay" for the snow days. None of that ever required an extra overhead tax to cover for those days. There were almost no snow days during the extremely dry winter this year.
Why the sudden need to squeeze projects for these fire related "Report Pay" days of closure? This doesn't seem right. Looks like another ploy by the LLC management to squeeze some extra cash out of lab projects. They just can't help themselves, can they? Like kids in a candy store.
8:47 nailed it. Memo just came out.
LANS upper management seems to never pass up a chance to stick it to the projects that help keep the lights burning and the money rolling into the lab.
I remember the horror on the face of the NSF guys working on the "privatization report" last year that was investigating the effects of the LLCs on LANL and LLNL research activities. When they found out that LANL staff costs around half a million per year (fully burdened) they almost fainted. They could hardly belief it.
Well, now they can increase that amount to $510,000 per year for a LANL FTE. And next year, of course, it will likely be even higher!
And to think, the LLC privatization of lab management was sold by the NNSA to Congress as a means for achieving "cost efficiency" at the labs. What a hoot!
$510,000? I'm barely worth half of that.
$510,000? I'm barely worth half of that.
July 19, 2011 1:35 AM
I'm worth every penny of this!
Bret Knapp
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