The Student Association will set aside more than $170,000 for co-sponsorships – the most the SA has ever set aside for the fund – according to a database analysis of 19 years of SA allocations by The Hatchet.

Any registered student organization can request additional money to fund an event through the SA’s co-sponsorship fund. Last year, the SA allocated more than $150,000 in almost 300 individual requests for co-sponsorships.

SA Sen. Matt Cohen (SoB-U), a senior and chairman of the finance committee, said student organizations that are not happy with their initial allocations can apply for co-sponsorships.

“Year to year, we have a limited budget and requests that far surpass the amount of money we have to work with,” Cohen said. “Year in and year out, the finance committee has to try to come up some sort of strategy to satisfy the organizations and allow them to function and be successful.”

Cohen said limiting the expansion of the initial allocations fund and providing for a larger co-sponsorship fund will benefit student organizations.

“One of my biggest things this year was to be more conservative in the front end and free up more money in the co-sponsorship fund because we really want to encourage organizations to program better,” Cohen said.

This year the SA has been looking for new ways to increase funding for student groups. The SA executive cut its budget by more than 27 percent from last year to free up more money for student organizations. In September, the student body voted down a referendum for a student fee increase that would nearly double the SA’s budget.

“We are all still working under the same unfavorable condition of having a very limited budget that for years now has been trying to be increased,” Cohen said. “For years, we have been trying to increase the budget to satisfy these requests, but it just doesn’t happen.”