Caiman Distribution Partners is the Brazilian distribution company of a U.S. consumer products firm. Inflation in Brazil has made bidding and budgeting difficult for marketing managers trying to penetrate some of the country's rural regions. The company expects to distribute 460,000 cases of products in Brazil next month. The controller has classified operating costs (excluding costs of the distributed product) as follows.

Account	Operating Cost			Behavior
Supplies	$	1,500,000		All variable
Supervision		207,000		$	153,000	Fixed
Truck expense		1,240,000		$	180,000	Fixed
Building leases		873,000		$	562,000	Fixed
Utilities		219,000		$	141,000	Fixed
Warehouse labor		873,000		$	122,000	Fixed
Equipment leases		775,000		$	620,000	Fixed
Data processing equipment		960,000		All fixed
Other		861,000		$	360,000	Fixed
Total	$	7,508,000

Although overhead costs were related to revenues throughout the company, the experience in Brazil suggested to the managers that they should incorporate information from a published index of Brazilian prices in the distribution sector to forecast overhead in a manner more likely to capture the economics of the business.

Following instructions from the corporate offices, the controller's office in Brazil collected the following information for monthly operations from last year.

Month	Cases	Price Index	Operating Costs
1	231,000	125	$5,699,167
2	354,000	121	5,806,666
3	232,000	122	5,849,933
4	425,000	124	5,927,645
5	349,000	126	5,939,163
6	350,000	118	6,043,392
7	409,000	129	5,918,523
8	452,000	136	6,133,896
9	368,000	130	6,126,158
10	425,000	136	6,186,653
11	413,000	127	6,208,827
12	453,000	130	6,362,283

These data are considered representative for both past and future operations in Brazil.

rev: 10_16_2019_QC_CS-186472, 10_13_2020_QC_CS-234647, 10_13_2020_QC_CS-234650

Required:

a-1. Determine the variable cost per case assuming that 450,000 cases will be shipped next month based on the controller's analysis of accounts. (Round your answer to 2 decimal places.)

a-2. Prepare an estimate of operating costs.