variable production overhead expenditure variance

The difference between the actual cost of the variable production overhead and the amount budgeted for variable production overhead. For example, consider a company that manufactures baseballs and budgeted 5,000 hours of variable production overhead at the variable production overhead rate of $10/hour, or $50,000. If the actual variable production overhead was $60,000, the variable production overhead expenditure variance is $10,000 ($60,000 - $50,000).