John Fleming, chief administrator for Valley View Hospital, is concemed about the costs for tests in the hospital's lab. Charges for lab tests are consistently higher at Valley View than at other hospitals and have resulted in many complaints. Also, because of strict regulations on amounts reimbursed for lab tests, payments received from insurance companies and governmental units have not been high enough to cover lab costs Mr. Fleming has asked you to evaluate costs in the hospital's lab for the past month. The following information is available: a. Two types of tests are performed in the lab-blood tests and smears. During the past month, 550 blood tests and 2,600 smears were performed in the lab: b. Small glass plates are used in both types of tests. During the past month. the hospital purchased 13,000 plates at a cost of $49,400. 1,600 of these plates were unused at the end of the month; no plates were on hand at the beginning of the month. c. During the past month, 1,600 hours of labor time were recorded in the lab at a cost of $16,960 d. The lab's variable overhead cost last month totaled $11,520 Valley View Hospital has never used standard costs. By searching industry literature, however, you have determined the following nationwide averages for hospital labs: Plates: Three plates are required per lab test. These plates cost $4.00 each and are disposed of after the test is completed Labor: Each blood test should require 0.4 hours to complete, and each smear should require 0.20 hours to complete. The average cost of this lab time is $11.60 per hour. Overthead: Overhead cost is based on direct labor-hours. The average rate for variable overhead is $670 per hour Required: 1. Compute a materials price variance for the plates purchased last month and a materials quantisy variance for the plates used last month 2. For labor cost in the lab a. Compute a labor rate variance and a labor efficiency vaciance. b. in most hospitais, one-haif of the warkers in the lab are senior technicians and one-thalf are assistarits. In an effort to reduce costs Valley View Hospital employs only one-founth senioc technicions and three-fourtis asstitants. Woold you recommend that this policy be continued? 3. Compute the vanable overhead rate and efficiency vanances. 3-b. Is there any relation between the vadiable overhead elficiency variance and the fabor efficiency variance