THE ISSUE: Alabama's biggest universities spend big bucks - sometimes not so successfully - in the state's capital.
What does a million bucks buy in higher education these days?
A year's worth of tuition for some 200 students at Auburn University. A year's worth of tuition for 65 students at UAB's medical school. Or a year's worth of lobbying for Alabama's two biggest university systems.
The University of Alabama and Auburn University spend nearly $1 million a year for lobbyists to tend their business in the state capital, The Huntsville Times reported last week.
(And this doesn't even include more subtle lobbying expenses, like free football tickets.)
The sum includes money for university employees who work as lobbyists, as well as $240,000 the schools spend annually for the services of powerhouse lobbying firm Fine Geddie & Associates.
The universities say the $20,000-a-month retainer for Fine Geddie is paid with private money donated to charitable foundations at the schools: UA's Capstone Fund and Auburn's Tigers Unlimited athletic department fund.
But that doesn't mean taxpayers ought to be unconcerned or that they're unaffected by what the universities are doing.
Critics blame Fine Geddie's lobbying on behalf of the universities for the Legislature's failure to pass the education budget during this year's regular session. That failure meant legislators had to return for a special session, at considerable taxpayer expense, just to approve the budget.
While it's wrong to lay the whole debacle on the universities and their lobbyists - legislators ultimately must shoulder the blame for what they did or didn't do - the higher education lobbying effort does offend on some level.
Certainly, it should rankle the school's supporters and donors. Keep in mind, the budget collapsed in the regular session because the universities couldn't get an extra $25 million. But when the special session rolled around, the universities settled for $5 million less than they would have received in the regular session.
That raises questions about how sensible the universities' lobbying effort was to begin with. It doesn't sound like money well-spent.
As The Times' story also highlights, there's public money involved, too. The schools use public funds to pay in-house lobbyists six-figure salaries. UA and Auburn lobbyists share an office in Montgomery that costs each school more than $4,000 a month just in rent.
This is a recurring affront. There's something wrong when taxpayers pay lobbyists to hound one branch of government for more money for another branch of government. It's maddening when city and county governments use public money this way, and when universities do it, too.
