Opinion

Last year, when Alabama Sen. Jabo Waggoner pushed a bill trying to save Birmingham-Southern College from disaster, he read a report on the college’s economic impact.

The school meant $97.2 million a year to the state, impact guru Keivan Deravi had determined.

That’s 1,481 jobs for Alabama.

That’s $6.8 million a year in state taxes.

That’s $7 million a year in local taxes.

That’s the kind of impact that makes a red-blooded Alabama politician promise the moon and forgive all the taxes on it. Or that’s what Waggoner, a Republican from Vestavia Hills, thought.

He called then-secretary of commerce Greg Canfield with this question.

“I said, Greg, if you know of a company over in Germany that’s considering Alabama, and they had an economic impact of $96 million (actually $97.2) a year, would you really go after them?”

Canfield gave him a short, definitive answer, Waggoner said.

“Hell yeah.”

Waggoner had a response to that.

“You know, we have $96 million (actually $97.2) right there under our nose. And we’re gonna let it lock the gates.”

Birmingham Southern is struggling. Bigtime. And unless the 186-year-old school can come up with money it thought it was going to get last year, it could close by spring.

“This is our third near-death experience,” BSC President Daniel Coleman said. “I think this one is real, unless we get funding.”

BSC last year thought the Legislature tossed it a $30 million life raft. The House and Senate overwhelmingly and bipartisanly passed a bill, with Birmingham-Southern specifically in mind, to set up a loan program for distressed schools.

The act put Alabama Treasurer Young Boozer in charge, and he took that life raft and poked holes in it. He refused to grant the loan, and BSC neared death again.

There’s been a lawsuit over it. BSC backers say in court and elsewhere that Boozer used delays, actions and inactions to thwart the loan, that he has made demands that are inconsistent and contradictory. Boozer – who did not return calls for this piece – has said he simply lacks confidence the school can meet the requirements he set for the loan.

Waggoner said Boozer has been disingenuous.

“That’s my opinion,” Waggoner said. “He’s refusing to comply with what we thought we had passed.”

And it’s all absurd.

I should say first that I come from a BSC family, though I did not attend myself. My dad and brother and daughter did, and I appreciate the education.

I should say also that I am angry a school as storied as BSC could find itself in this mess. It paid a disastrous Music Man of a former president, David Pollick, a bloated salary and allowed him to spend down the endowment. Pollick left the place in flames, while a board of trustees filled with so-called pillars of the community fiddled as it burned.

BSC had to come to terms with that. It solicited pledges and developed plans and worked with creditors and – Bam! – ran headlong into asinine Alabama government, which pays people across oceans millions upon millions to bring jobs to this state, but refuses to help a local institution because of the whims of a Boozer.

The $30 million is just a small part of BSC’s goal of reaching $200 million, but it is the next step. It would put BSC above $75 million, a figure that would trigger the payment of other pledges and keep them afloat.

Without it they are sunk.

Canfield, the longtime economic development czar, last year moved from state work to a private law firm, and didn’t want to talk about BSC or his conversation with Waggoner. But he doesn’t have to. The numbers are clear.

Alabama gave $158.5 million in incentives to Airbus more than a decade ago to lure 1,000 jobs. That’s more than $158,000 a job. A lot more if you adjust for inflation.

It often goes terribly. Baxter Healthcare Corp. agreed to hire 200 people in Opelika, and took $3 million in state incentives to do it. It just went belly up.

If you look at Alabama’s biggest development deals this century, it gave Airbus, Daimler, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes and ThyssenKrupp, total incentives of $1.86 billion to attract 11,500 jobs.

That’s $162,000 a job. Which is also absurd.

BSC, on the other hand, wants a $30 million loan. A loan. To be repaid. To save 1,481 jobs.

That’s $20,257 a job.

Or, put another way, if jobs at the college were worth $162,000 a pop, like those foreign companies got, it would come to $240 million.

BSC doesn’t want that. BSC is not asking for that. It is simply asking for the help the Legislature thought it gave before Young Boozer tore it all down,

Birmingham Southern, a college that was loyal to Birmingham when others were not, has one more chance.

“So we’re back to square one,” Waggoner said. “We’ve got a decision to make, whether to take another run at it and make it more forceful, or to let it drop.”

Make that run, Alabama. If not for the school, or higher ed, or community, or the students, or for Jabo Waggoner. Do it for the thing you claim to love most:

Jobs, jobs, jobs.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner at AL.com.