The Model United Nations (MUN) Club recently squandered more than 70 percent of its budget after unknowingly booking twice as many rooms as needed at hotels for the Berkeley MUN conference last month.

Bookkeeping records show the club spent $6,152 on reservations for two nights at the Nash Hotel for the March 4-6 conference at UC Berkeley.

Records also show the club reimbursed first-year adviser Chelsea Lanahan $4,474.80 for rooms initially booked at the Berkeley Inn for the same conference.

“Unfortunately, we ended up having to pay for two nights at two different hotels and we only stayed at one of them,” said Lanahan, who teaches English.

As a result, the club’s balance dropped to $2,446.89, compared to what would have been $8,598.89 if the club was aware of the original booking former adviser Doug Devries made at the Berkeley Inn.

“It ended up being a lot of miscommunication between the old adviser and the [outgoing MUN] board because Devries hasn’t been in contact with us,” said senior Stephanie Yip, the outgoing MUN board secretary. “He didn’t tell us beforehand that he booked the rooms.”

Devries, who retired after the 2014-15 school year, reserved rooms at the Berkeley Inn after the 2015 conference. He later emailed outgoing president Sahil Saboo, detailing events for the incoming year. Saboo declined comment for the story.

“The email was sent over the summer and outlined Saboo’s duties for the year, but didn’t cover Devries’ hotel booking for the 2016 Berkeley MUN Conference well enough,” said Lanahan.

Yip and senior Madeline Valdez said they believe Devries charged the Berkeley Inn deposit with the knowledge of MUN’s 2014-2015 board, but without this year’s board knowing about the reservation.

“There was an email, but he didn’t tell us that he booked the hotel [the Berkeley Inn],” Yip said. “It wasn’t specific enough for us to know he had actually booked it last year.”

Students said Devries has not contacted members of the MUN board this school year. Several club members note that this was one of many issues to lead to the mistake.

“Going into the biggest conference of the year, it was a lot more chaotic than usual,” said Valdez, the outgoing MUN vice president of education. “With his transition to Nevada, Mr. Devries completely lost contact with us and we had no idea what was going to go down.”

To make matters worse, the miscommunication could have been cleared up weeks before the conference when a Berkeley Inn employee called Cal High to confirm the booking.

“We later found out that someone from the office approved the reservation, but nobody told us they confirmed