ERC Education is a private school that offers only degree-level programmes. ERC has two principal operating departments - Engineering and Computer Science; and three support departments - Maintenance, Marketing, and Enrolment Services. Maintenance department allocates costs using budgeted total maintenance hours while Enrolment Services and Marketing uses the number of credit hours. The budgeted costs for Maintenance, Marketing, and Enrolment Services departments are $240,000, $360,000, and $600,000 respectively. The budgeted cost for Engineering and Computer Sciences departments are $500,000 and $850,000 respectively. The following table summarizes the services usage by each department. (a) Propose the order in which to allocate the support departments' costs, if ERC uses the step-down method to allocate support departments' costs to operating departments. Provide justifications for your proposal. Calculate the new total cost for the Enrolment Services department after using the step-down method. Ignore your proposal in part (a), and allocate support departments' costs in the order of Maintenance, then Marketing and finally Enrolment Services. (c) Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using the direct and reciprocal methods to allocate support department costs versus the step-down method used in part (b) above