Rounding on Observer Fees Explained and Illustrated

Per Amendment 86 to the Fishery Management Plan for Groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area and Amendment 76 the Fishery Management Plan for Goundfish of the Gulf of Alaska, an observer fee equal to 1.25 percent of the fishery ex-vessel value is assessed on partial coverage category participants to fund their observer coverage under the authority of section 313 of the MSA.

In the case of groundfish landings the observer fee is calculated on the weight posted to the Alaska Region's Catch Accounting System (CAS).   Landed weight in eLandings is stored in pounds to four digits of precision.  CAS posts weights in metric tons with three decimal places of precision, which is effectively in integer kilograms. Pounds at four digits of precision are converted into metric tons at three digits of precision (integer kilograms) through a two-stage process; first metric tons is calculated via the PL/SQL statement:

mt := p_lbs / 2204.6226;

and then metric tons is stored in a database column that is limited to three decimal digits of precision, which truncates the stored value to three decimal digits.  The product recovery rate is then applied to the weight in metric tons to give the round weight in metric tons via the statement:

rnd_wt := p_wt / prr;

The round weight is posted to the Catch Accounting System.  The round weight in metric tons (with 3 decimal digits of precision) is then converted back to round weight in pounds via the statement:

txn.weight_posted * 2204.6226 

The round weight in pounds is multiplied by the observer fee standard price and multiplied by 1.25% to get the estimated observer fee via the statement:

g.weight_posted_pounds * NVL (gp.standard_price, 0) * obsfee_utility.get_fee_percent

Note that during the fishing year NMFS provides estimates of observer fees using the mechanisms described here.  Actual observer fees will be calculated at the end of the fishing year for billing in January of the subsequent year.  Rounding errors from landings with small product amounts may appear to be significant errors when viewed for a particular landing.  But rounding errors should be much less significant when viewed for the product amounts for an entire fishing year.