Chapter 14 Agency Expense Collection
The Agency Expense Collection describes a Provider’s CWD surveillance-related expenses and allows for documentation of expenses by Season-year, Sample source (e.g., hunter-harvest, road kill), Sample collection program, Expense type (e.g., shipping, test fees, staff time), and location (e.g., sub-administrative area or agency management unit).
14.1 Understanding and using the Agency Expense Collection
There are several key features and properties of the Agency Expense Collection that users should understand to effectively use the Collection:
- currency
- aggregate by Season-year
- total expenses, not per sample expenses
- expenses are additive
- complete spatial coverage
14.1.1 Currency
Expenses should be entered in the currency of the country of the Agency. For example, if the Provider is the Canadian province of Ontario, expenses should be entered as Canadian dollars (CAD).
14.1.2 Aggregate by Season-year
Expenses are aggregated and entered per Season-year. After an Agency Expense group is added for a given Season-year, all surveillance-related expenses for the given Season-year are entered in that group.
14.1.3 Total expenses, not per sample expenses
Expenses should be entered as totals rather than per sample costs. For instance, if 100 samples were collected from Region 3 in New York State in 2020-21 and the diagnostic laboratory test fee was $30 per sample, the expense amount should be entered as $3000, rather than $30.
Per sample costs are calculated automatically based on the expenses entered and data in the Sample Collection.
14.1.4 Expenses are additive
In data summaries, Models, and Visualizations, expenses are considered mutually exclusive and additive. If an expense is already accounted for in one Expense entry, the expense should not be included as part of another Expense entry. For example, if the cost of shipping hunter-harvested samples for one region of a state is entered as an Expense, entering total statewide shipping costs would result in duplicate cost entry and a falsely high cost for shipping samples from that region. Two possible solutions would be to 1) enter shipping costs for each region individually or 2) enter shipping costs for the one region, then enter the total remaining shipping costs for all other regions as a second Expense.
14.1.5 Complete spatial coverage
For a given Sample source or Expense type, account for that expense across the entire agency jurisdiction (state-, province-, or tribal jurisdiction-wide). Because expenses are assumed to be additive, any expenses not entered are effectively zero. Therefore, if testing fees are entered for one region of the agency’s jurisdiction, but not the remainder, testing fees for the remaining area of the jurisdiction would be considered zero. This omission can produce undesired or unclear results in data summaries, Models, and Visualizations.
14.3 Properties
An asterisk denotes a required field. Internal database field names are given in parentheses following the human-readable field name.
| Field name | Definition | Allowed values |
|---|---|---|
| Season-year | The one-year period spanning July 1 to June 30 of the following year (e.g., 2020-21 is the Season-year for the time period from July 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021) | YYYY-yy where YYYY is a 4-digit year and yy is the 2-digit year immediately following YYYY (e.g., 2020-21) |
| Expenses | multiple expenses are entered per Season-year | |
| Species | The cervid species for which the expense is relevant | white-tailed deer, black-tailed deer, elk, moose, mule deer, red deer, reindeer, axis deer, Eid’s deer, fallow deer, muntjac, Pere David’s deer, samba deer, sika, tufted deer, caribou, hybrid, unknown |
| Sample source | The collection category, purpose, or origin of the sample (select all that apply) | Captive cervid facility, Clinical suspect, Hunter harvest, Illegal import, Removal for crop damage, Research, Road kill, Targeted removal, Unknown |
| Sample collection program | Category of special collection program through which samples are collected, such as a taxidermy partnership program that incentivizes sample collection (select all that apply) | Hunter-harvest, Taxidermist processor, Other |
| Expense scope | The area for which the expense applies; must be defined by sub-administrative area(s), agency management unit(s), or as administrative area-wide; note that Agency management units are defined through the Provider Administration Interface | Expense scope can be defined at only one scale (sub-administrative area, agency management unit, or administrative area-wide) |
| Type | The type or category of the expense (select all that apply) | Disposal, Facilities, Shipping, Supplies, Staff, Testing Fees, Cooperator payments, Education/outreach materials, and Other |
| Accuracy | Identify whether the expense is an actual cost or an estimated cost | Actual, Estimated |
| Amount | The total amount of the expense, assumed to be in Provider country currency | positive integer or decimal number |
| Notes | Provide any additional notes necessary to describe the expense | any plain text string containing numbers, letters, and/or symbols |