SCP-5214 — SCP-5214 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-5214 Unknown ~ medium confidence

SCP-5214

Expected annual

$931K

One-time setup

$591K

Annual recurring

$924K

Personnel

One-time setup costs for secure storage, acoustic test space, and forensic/archive hardware are moderate; recurring annual costs are driven by dedicated research/security staff, legal/ethics retainers, medical/psych services, and monitoring/takedown budgets.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $591K

Legal Contingency $300K

[#11] Litigation/criminal-investigation contingency fund (one-time reserve).

Psychological Remediation Fund One Time $100K

[#24] Initial seed for remediation/liability fund to cover long-term therapy or settlements.

Equipment $78K

[#2, #3, #4, #5, #7, #15, #19] Access-control hardware ($6.5k), CCTV install ($4k), air-gapped archival servers/LTO ($19k), forensics kit ($6.5k), playback/recording gear ($16k), incident-response equipment ($11.5k), secure transport case/kit ($15k).

Facilities $44K

[#1, #6] Locker purchase/installation and soundproof/acoustic room construction (locker $4.5k; booth/room $40k estimate).

Initial Research And Lab Setup $30K

[#22] Initial musicological/linguistic research project setup and specialist commissioning.

Human Subject Protocol Development $15K

[#12] Development of consent forms, IRB-equivalent reviews and specialized waivers.

Training Materials One Time $15K

[#14] One-time production of SOPs and training modules.

Decommissioning Disposal $8K

[#26] Secure destruction/record-keeping costs if mandated.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $924K/yr

Staff Wages $350K/yr

[#8, #9] Salaries for dedicated audio research team and base security wages (senior researcher, engineer, RA, 2 guards, admin).

Cover Story And Legal $120K/yr

[#11, #17] Ongoing legal/ethics retainers and cover-story/communications budget (retainer ~$100k + cover communications ~$20k).

Medical And Clinical Support $105K/yr

[#10] Screening, on-call clinicians and counseling services (contracted clinical support).

Research And Monitoring $100K/yr

[#22, #23, #21] Ongoing musicological/linguistic analysis, controlled-performance research program, and data-integrity/QA audits.

Volunteer Compensation Program $40K/yr

[#13] Paid participant compensation and replacement staffing budget for testing program.

External Ethics Oversight $40K/yr

[#16] External auditors/independent psychologists retainer and reviews.

Digital Takedown Contingency $30K/yr

[#18] Contingency reserve for escalated legal actions and sinkhole hosting.

Insurance And Indemnity $30K/yr

[#25] Liability insurance or internal risk reserve premiums.

Psychological Remediation Annual $20K/yr

[#24] Annual contribution to remediation/liability reserves and long-term care budgets.

Security Overtime $15K/yr

[#9] Overtime/reserve coverage for off-hours escorts and two-person rule enforcement.

Digital Takedown Services $15K/yr

[#18] Active web monitoring and takedown processing.

Facilities Maintenance $10K/yr

[#20] Pro-rated site utilities, climate control and maintenance for stored item.

Incident Response Refreshes $10K/yr

[#15] Annual refreshes of non-invasive restraint tools, sedative supplies (if approved), and training.

Supplies And Consumables $8K/yr

[#27, #4] Consumables: cables, batteries, recording media and periodic replacement tapes/media ($2k) + misc repairs/consumables ($6k).

Logistics And Transport $8K/yr

[#19] Budget for occasional secure recovery/transport operations (per-operation reserve averaged annually).

Recovery Operation Budget $8K/yr

[#19] Annual budget to support occasional recovery operations (fuel, vehicle escort, ad-hoc expenses).

Human Subject Protocol Updates $6K/yr

[#12] Annual updates/compliance training for consent and protocol changes.

Training And Sop Updates $6K/yr

[#14] Ongoing training for new staff and refresher courses.

Cctv Storage And Maintenance $2K/yr

[#3] Camera maintenance and secure footage storage costs.

Access Control Maintenance $500/yr

[#2] Badge/biometric system maintenance and logging service fees (~$500/yr).

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $924K/yr

94.0% probability / year

Normal year with routine testing, monitoring and no major incidents.

routine testing scheduled maintenance no legal/medical incidents

🚨 Minor Incident $966K/yr

5.0% probability / year +$42K vs baseline

Localized incident during a test (medical/psychological exposure or small leak) requiring emergency response, short-term counseling and PR/legal actions.

adverse staff exposure small-scale information leak minor legal/PR response

🚨 Major Breach $1.4M/yr

1.0% probability / year +$492K vs baseline

Significant leak, legal action or incident causing protracted litigation, large settlements, extended therapy needs and full forensic recovery.

public dissemination of audio criminal investigation multiple affected personnel requiring long-term care

👥 Personnel 6 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist / Audio Researcher	1	Senior researcher to design tests and analysis (~$110k/yr).
Audio Engineer / Technician	1	Technical operator for recording/playback and equipment maintenance (~$65k/yr).
Research Assistant	1	Support for experiments, transcription, and archiving (~$45k/yr).
Security Officer / MTF Agent	2	Two-person-rule guards for access control and escorts (~$50k each/yr).
Administrative Staff	1	Administrative support for scheduling, records, and coordination (~$30k/yr).
Medical Officer / Clinician (contracted)	0	On-call clinicians are contracted services rather than permanent FTEs (budgeted as recurring contract line item).

📋 Confidence Notes

Line items are well-specified with vendor-range estimates for hardware and staff costs, but uncertainty remains due to anomalous behavior unpredictability, legal exposure variance, and frequency/scale of testing, so overall confidence is medium.

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