User Fee & Facility Information

How WHOI Facilities work
This lab operates as a facility (cost center) that is financially supported primarily through user fees. Expenses such as salaries and benefits, expendables (argon, torches, cones, etc.) and repairs are all charges that must be covered by user fees. Note that the reduced "weekend" rate is for internal (WHOI) users only.

For 2013 the daily fees will be:

NEPTUNE:	$1470.00
ELEMENT2:	$1240.00
Reduced weekend day rate (Neptune and E2, internal users only)	$1000.00
193nm LASER:	$110.00
Night Ar:	$110.00
Full Isotope Analysis (Sr, Nd, or Pb)	$325.00

We need to charge users who are operating the mass spectrometers beyond 2 am a "Night Ar " charge to cover the cost of gases used during very long analytical sessions.

We are also charging users for the use of the 193 nm eximer laser ablation system (since 2010). Repairs to this system are potentially expensive and we need to financially prepare the cost center for such events.

There is no overhead charged on salaries at WHOI instrumental facilities (cost centers). However, there is currently (2012) a ~$113,000 annual "Space Charge" based on floor area of the labs. While new (2007) accounting rules allow us to transfer deficits and surpluses into the new financial year, we do attempt to balance the yearly budgets by tracking their status throughout the year and adjusting the user fees and discretionary expenses in small increments to acheive this goal.

The worst case scenario is a major breakdown of one or more of the mass spectrometers requiring service visits which can result in tens of thousands of dollars in charges that can't be budgeted for and will force us to adjust user rates during the year.

How Billing Works
Within WHOI, each day^*of analyses on either the Element2 or the Neptune must have a valid WHOI project number to cover charges. At the end of every month, we submit a balance sheet to accounting listing the project numbers used for that month.

^* A day starts with the technical staff setting up the mass spec and ends the following morning when the instrument is being prepared for the next user.

Users signing up for a day commit to using the facility that day. Facility staff needs to be informed of cancellations as early as possible, but at least two days in advance. Any later cancellation will result in a charge of one unit (day) unless another user can use the instrument that day.

Guidelines For Projects Outside of WHOI

Obtain an estimate from Scot or Jurek for amount of time needed to accomplish the analytical goal. We will arrange for a quote to be sent to your institution.
Send a purchase order to Gaynor Andrews, (gandrews@whoi.edu) MS# 4, WHOI, Woods Hole MA, 02543 with (for example):
Description of work to be completed, such as "3 days of analytical services provided by the WHOI ICPMS Facility to _________ (your name) at a daily rate of $1470.00 per day (Neptune) for a total charge of $4410.00 for analysis of _______ samples for Sr isotope ratios."
Period of performance. (Example: 6/1/13 - 12/31/13)
Source of funding. If the funding is coming from a government source, please send us the grant number and funding source. If not coming from a government source, WHOI will charge an adminstrative fee of 15% of the estimated analytical costs.

Acknowledgements
Please do acknowledge the use of the WHOI ICPMS Facility in your publications and presentations. The U.S. National Science Foundation and WHOI are supporting the facility financially, and our skilled operators appreciate seeing their contributions acknowledged. We therefore recommend the following sentence for the "Acknowlegements" section of your publications:

"We acknowledge the use of the NSF-supported WHOI ICPMS facility and thank [Scot Birdwhistell, Jerzy Blusztajn] for their assistance"

Last updated: January 29, 2013