At the Spring Valley Company, the cost of the personnel department has always been charged to production departments based upon number of employees. Recently, opinions gathered from the department managers indicate that the number of new hires might be a better predictor of personnel costs. Total personnel department costs are $298,000. Department Number of employees Number of new hires A 50 30 B 285 13 200 12 Which cost estimation method is being used by Spring Valley Company? A. the conference method B. the simple regression method C. the marginal costing method OD. the account analysis method