Facing a record-high amount of requests, the Finance Board will use a relatively low amount of funding to fund regular marathon requests as a result of more clubs requesting larger sums of money for early marathon. This year, out of $247,266 in the F-Board budget, $83,243 has already been allotted for early marathon, leaving $164,022 remaining for clubs that requested $463,000 in funding during marathon this past week. After over-allocating and expecting that some clubs will not use all of their early marathon money, the official amount allocated was $196,893.

"Last year we were able to give 85 percent of what clubs requested on average," explained F-Board member Gabriel Weingrod-Nemzow '12. That percentage will be in the low 40s, according to Union Treasurer Akash Vadalia '12. According to Vadalia, the increase in the number of requested funds is due to an increase in chartered clubs and an increase in the F-Board requests by student clubs and organizations.

"Large increases from last year include $15,000 more for Club Sports, $11,000 more for BEMCo, $6,000 more for WBRS, around $8,000 more for Waltham Group, $5,000 more for SSIS, and $3,000 more for BTV," wrote Budget Analyst Steven Costa in an e-mail to the Justice.

Members of the F-Board also attributed part of the request increase to a rise in the number of club sports, which also request funding from the F-Board.

Moreover, secured clubs, which are guaranteed yearly funding and do not need to apply for funding from F-Board, requested more funding this year, increasing requests by $50,000, according to Costa.

Most years, explained the F-Board, there is a rollover from year to year that occurs when clubs do not spend all of their allotted money. For example, $50,000 of rollover from fall 2009 was reallocated in spring 2010. In his e-mail to the Justice, however, Costa explained; "Although [Student Activity Fee] revenue increased, after accounting for late expenses, there was virtually no rollover this year" from the spring 2010 semester. According to Costa, the F-Board semester budget consists of money allocated for secured clubs, the salary of the Budget Analyst and fringe costs of operation, early marathon and fall marathon.

Most of the money provided to the F-Board comes from the Student Activities Fee, the annual fee that each undergraduate student, except for students studying abroad, pays each semester. After Costa's salary, fringe costs and the CapEx/Reserve fund is deducted, the F-Board has a budget to use for marathon. The CapEx/Reserve fund "is used to fund things like the annual maintenance contract and server rental for Student Union Management System, the new club finance application," wrote Costa.

"We fear that some clubs might not be able to function," said Weingrod-Nemzow. Clubs are being advised to look into alternate methods of funding, such as departmental and grant funding.

The F-Board allocates money based on the merit of the request, the funding scale of the club, and whether the club leadership is deemed able to hold the planned event, explained the F-Board in an interview with the Justice.

"We can't really allocate money for an event that might not happen, because for every dollar we give to a club we can't give to another club," Weingrod-Nemzow said.

During marathon, the F-Board members meet with the leaders of different campus groups requesting money and listen to their plans for the funding period.

"If their request has merit then at that point we consider if what the club requested is too much. . We figure out if we can get [the club's request] for cheaper and we look for them. We tell them to re-look if we think it's too much, and we basically get it so we can get what they want for as cheap as possible," explained Weingrod-Nemzow.

"We try to get it as cheap as possible without skipping on quality; we try to get the best item for the best price," he said.

This year, publicity costs, food for meetings, food for events and the number of weekly lessons were reduced aspects of F-Board allocation as a result of the funding conditions.

While the University has experienced a net increase of 100 more students, the fund request increased by $140,000 from last fall semester, according to the F-Board, indicating that even though the SAF was increased by the payments of the 100 students, the requests outweighed the increase.

"We wanted to tell all the clubs that we truly apologize for our inability to fund all of their events in the way that we actually want to. . They can still do everything they want to do, just without all the bells and whistles they were planning," explained Weingrod-Nemzow.