SCP-4727 — SCP-4727 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-4727 Safe ~ medium confidence

SCP-4727

Expected annual

$1.3M

One-time setup

$2.0M

Annual recurring

$1.3M

Personnel

First-year (one-time) setup costs are large due to contingency/reserve funds, legal/cover-story setup, vault/upgrades and specialized lab/equipment; steady-state annual operating costs are driven by staff wages, research projects, legal/PR retainers, and overhead.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $2.0M

Catastrophic Contingency Reserve $1.0M

[#30] Low-probability catastrophic contingency reserve for large-scale covert operations, compensation, and PR/legal campaigns.

Declassification Legal Fund $250K

[#29] One-time reserve for potential declassification/legal defense and litigation preparation.

Contingency Fund Theft Recapture $200K

[#20] One-time contingency reserve for theft/recapture operations and rapid-response funds.

Legal And Cover Setup $150K

[#17] Front-company / cover-story establishment, initial legal retainer and setup.

Liability Reserve $150K

[#10] One-time liability/reserve fund for subject harm and indemnity.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $80K

[#7, #13] Sleep-lab and polysomnography setup plus bench/forensics equipment ($60k + $20k).

Facilities $60K

[#2, #14] Room-level secure storage upgrades and vault/secure-storage one-time upgrades ($40k + $20k).

Vetting And Clearance Initial $25K

[#5] Initial background checks, polygraphs, and clearance processing reserve.

Equipment $22K

[#1, #3, #15] Evidence/ballistic locker, CCTV/setup, and separate briefcase evidence locker ($10k + $6k + $6k).

Materials And Destructive Testing $20K

[#16] Setup for forced-opening mitigation/destructive testing protocols and specialized tools.

Documentation Setup $15K

[#23] Secure databases, archival system setup, and evidence management tooling.

Pistol Destruction $3K

[#19] Secure destruction/disposition processing for the pistol after use.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.3M/yr

Staff Wages $400K/yr

[#4, #6] Security and research staff wages (armed guards and PI/technicians).

Research And Monitoring $290K/yr

[#7, #9, #10, #11, #13, #14, #16, #28] Sleep-lab maintenance, psychiatric screening/follow-up, subject compensation allocation, ethics committee admin, per-test imaging/forensics, hazard screening, periodic destructive-testing attempts, and multi-year mechanism research funding.

Personnel Overhead $140K/yr

[#24] Benefits, HR, facility overhead allocation (pro-rated).

Cover Story And Legal $120K/yr

[#17] Annual legal retainers, counsel, and cover-story maintenance costs.

Media Pr And Counterintelligence $100K/yr

[#18] Media containment, PR management, and counterintelligence operations budget.

Medical And Emergency Coverage $80K/yr

[#8] On-call / partial permanent medical coverage costs (ER physician/anesthesiology standby or contract retainer).

Insurance And Indemnity $40K/yr

[#21] Property/liability/employee insurance adjusted for high-risk activities.

Logistics And Transport $30K/yr

[#12] Controlled/armored transport and secure movement protocols for off-site tests or relocations.

Facilities Maintenance $20K/yr

[#3, #14, #23] Site utilities, CCTV maintenance/backups, and vault/locker upkeep.

Subject Relocation And Witness Protection $10K/yr

[#26] Budgeted reserve for occasional relocation/protection actions.

Containment Audits $10K/yr

[#27] Periodic external containment audits and redundancy reviews.

Supplies And Consumables $8K/yr

[#13, #25] Per-test consumables, PPE, and small forensic consumables.

Documentation Maintenance $5K/yr

[#23] Ongoing maintenance and secure archival costs for records and chain-of-custody logs.

Vetting And Clearance Ongoing $3K/yr

[#5] Ongoing background checks and clearance processing for new hires.

Training Refresher $3K/yr

[#22] Annual firearms safety and anomalous-handling refresher training per staff.

Cctv Storage And Logging $1K/yr

[#3] Off-site/backed-up CCTV storage and secure audit logging costs.

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.3M/yr

93.8% probability / year

Normal year with scheduled testing, maintenance, and no security incidents.

no breaches routine testing regular audits

🚨 Minor Incident $1.3M/yr

5.0% probability / year +$50K vs baseline

Detected unauthorized access attempt or small-scale theft attempt requiring response, repair, and legal actions.

attempted break-in tamper alarm response small legal claim

🚨 Major Breach $1.8M/yr

1.0% probability / year +$500K vs baseline

Successful theft, unauthorized off-site use, or a containment breach requiring recapture, major legal/PR response, and compensation.

successful theft publicized violent incident large-scale recovery ops

🚨 Catastrophic Public Exposure $4.3M/yr

0.2% probability / year +$3.0M vs baseline

Severe public incident or fatality with international implications requiring major covert operations, multi-million legal defense, long-term PR, and settlements.

mass publicity fatal misuse foreign actor involvement

👥 Personnel 8 total

Role	Count	Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent	3	[#4] Armed guard coverage (minimum 3 full-time personnel to provide shifts).
Research Scientist	1	[#6] Principal investigator overseeing testing and reporting.
Technician	2	[#6, #7, #13] Technicians for sleep-lab ops, forensic imaging, and sample handling.
Medical Officer	1	[#8] On-call / part-time medical specialist for tests and emergency response.
Administrative Staff	1	[#11, #23] Ethics committee coordination, documentation, and admin support.

📋 Confidence Notes

Estimates combine several well-described items (security, lab setup) with large discretionary reserves and contingency funds; uncertainty arises from test frequency, incident probability, and organization risk tolerance.

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