Unlike Lyle's advice to the contrary, federal contracts and the cost data
submitted by both successful and unsuccessful bidders are not available for
review.  These cost data are a bidder's proprietary data and will not be
released.  I would bet that even a Freedom of Information Act request will
fail because of provisions in federal contract law that exempts
contractor's proprietary submissions.  Otherwise, I am sure each
archaeological contractor would be very interested in obtaining other
companies wage rates.

If you are trying to determine costs, what about the costs to initially,
then in perpetuity, curate the collections?  If they are federal, then 36
CFR Part 79 applies.  Do you really mean conservation or archaeological
collections management?  While a conservator or conservators should be
readily available to assess the needs of a collection, a collections
manager will be the person to do the basic preparatory work for a
collection prior to its transfer to a professional operated repository.  If
you need a conservator, you need to decide what kind; paper,
objects?  Different materials, stone, bone, metal, paper, require different
treatments.  Funding should be sufficient to cover not only the excavation,
lab processing, analysis, and report production, but the long term costs to
care for the collections.  Speaking with other professionals, such as
conservators, and collection managers, and hiring them as required, should
be an integral part of the project.  After all, the project does not end
with the final report.

Marc Kodack
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