Just how much has been spent on South Carolina's most famous Confederate relic isn't clear. In a recent investigative report, The (Columbia) State concluded that, counting what already has been spent and plans to spend more, it amounted to $97 million in local, state, federal or private funds. Another newspaper, The (Charleston) Post and Courier, estimated it was less than a third as much -- $29.3 million. The discrepancy can be explained, in part, because the latter newspaper counted only public money that had been spent or committed.

Rather than quibble over a few million or so --after all, it's only the hard-earned money of South Carolinians -- we advocate a legislative audit of the Hunley project.

Of concern to us is how an estimated $14 million in government funds already could have been spent on the Hunley with scant public notification.

We also want to know how, when South Carolina already has more institutions of higher learning than it can afford to support, Clemson University will end up with a $14 million campus in North Charleston, while agreeing to spend $2.4 million preserving the Hunley. What's the thinking behind such expenditures when South Carolina hasn't enough money to fix its highways, to hire enough troopers to patrol them, to replace crumbling "Corridor of Shame" schools or to treat its mentally ill patients?

Objecting to a legislative audit is Sen. Glenn McConnell, R-Charleston, president pro tem of the state Senate, who has headed the Hunley Commission since its inception in the mid-1990s. He says it would be a waste of money.

We disagree. Whether the hit to taxpayers is $30 million or $100 million, the Legislative Audit Council is the proper agency to give the public a full accounting of how tax dollars are being spent on the Hunley.

To date, state Reps. Herb Kirsh, D-Clover, Ralph Norman, R-Rock Hill, and Bessie Moody-Lawrence, D-Rock Hill, are among those who have supported the call for a legislative audit. Good for them.

We hope other lawmakers will have the courage to do the same.

IN SUMMARY
Estimates vary, but as much as $100 million may be spent on projects connected to the Confederate submarine.