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But it only cost $1500 extra. His salary is already in the budget. No need to do a fund raiser to pay him. At which point, since that money was going to be spen

But it only cost $1500 extra. His salary is already in the budget. No need to do a fund raiser to pay him. At which point, since that money was going to be spent anyways, the only real cost from his time is the opportunity cost for what else he could have been doing.

bensummers 17y ago
If he had stuff he was doing, then someone else had to do it, and therefore there was a cost. Even if this cost was someone going unpaid overtime. If he is employed to do such work, then his salary should definitely be counted!
- fefzero 17y ago
  Yes, but then you'd probably have to subtract the amount of time that he would have spent implementing the other type of solution or getting training on how to administer it. The salary doesn't necessarily have to be included; it's a fixed cost.
  - ks 17y ago
    We can also assume that his job in technical support did not use 100% of his time. So some of the costs were already there to begin with.
hyperbovine 17y ago
the only real cost from his time is the opportunity cost for what else he could have been doing Exactly--and since you're bringing economics into picture, the opportunity cost should exactly equal the wages expended on developing this. OP makes a valid point. OTOH if the marginal cost of production is really 1/20th of the next-best solution, then his employer should easily be able to recoup that by rolling out a bunch of these.
- camccann 17y ago
  Exactly--and since you're bringing economics into picture, the opportunity cost should exactly equal the wages expended on developing this. OP makes a valid point. Not necessarily, if his job includes some degree of "on demand" responsibilities--it said he was a librarian who handles some tech support, so chances are a lot of what he's being paid for is just being there when needed. On a slow day, he'd be there anyway and getting paid the same, so working on something like this is a clear win over, I don't know, dusting shelves or something.

bensummers 17y ago

If he had stuff he was doing, then someone else had to do it, and therefore there was a cost. Even if this cost was someone going unpaid overtime. If he is employed to do such work, then his salary should definitely be counted!

fefzero 17y ago
Yes, but then you'd probably have to subtract the amount of time that he would have spent implementing the other type of solution or getting training on how to administer it. The salary doesn't necessarily have to be included; it's a fixed cost.
- ks 17y ago
  We can also assume that his job in technical support did not use 100% of his time. So some of the costs were already there to begin with.

hyperbovine 17y ago

the only real cost from his time is the opportunity cost for what else he could have been doing Exactly--and since you're bringing economics into picture, the opportunity cost should exactly equal the wages expended on developing this. OP makes a valid point. OTOH if the marginal cost of production is really 1/20th of the next-best solution, then his employer should easily be able to recoup that by rolling out a bunch of these.

camccann 17y ago
Exactly--and since you're bringing economics into picture, the opportunity cost should exactly equal the wages expended on developing this. OP makes a valid point. Not necessarily, if his job includes some degree of "on demand" responsibilities--it said he was a librarian who handles some tech support, so chances are a lot of what he's being paid for is just being there when needed. On a slow day, he'd be there anyway and getting paid the same, so working on something like this is a clear win over, I don't know, dusting shelves or something.