ALBANY — New York’s public colleges are spending nearly $1 million this year to retain well-connected lobbyists that push policies — including tuition hikes — and tap into whatever state money is available at the Capitol.

And the University at Buffalo leads the pack, employing three different lobbying firms.

The money spent to hire an army of lobbyists boasting ties to the Legislature and governor’s office doesn’t include what the colleges will spend beyond retainer fees, such as their own in-house government affairs offices and expenses for receptions at the Capitol to lure lawmakers to hear their case.

And it doesn’t include the nearly $600,000 that the central office of the State University of New York, located a few blocks from the Capitol, has budgeted this year for its own internal lobbying staff.

College officials say the politics of Albany give them little choice but to spend the money on lobbyists.

“I don’t have the time myself. I have a day job. And I have far too few people to do what needs to be done right now,” UB President John Simpson said of the lobbyists hired to get moving a major plan that would give UB and other SUNY campuses more latitude on everything from tuition to venture deals with private companies.

But critics say the public colleges’ hiring spree of lobbyists is another sign of how twisted the Capitol has become: State agencies like SUNY campuses feel compelled to spend money to lobby the state. And critics wonder why schools can’t rely on SUNY’s central office in Albany to handle their lobbying requests at the Capitol.

“I guess some schools have added a new degree: magna cum lobby,” said Blair Horner, a lobbyist with the New York Public Interest Research Group.

“They need to have contacts and access that only contract lobbyists can give, and I think that’s a sad commentary on how people think about Albany, and it may be the reality, which is worse,” Horner said.

In the past couple years — when state fiscal pressures mounted and higher education spending became an easy target for budget cutters — a growing number of public colleges turned to lobbying firms.

At least 16 public colleges — from the SUNY and City University of New York systems — are using lobbyists this year, including the SUNY campuses at Binghamton, Stony Brook, Purchase, Downstate Medical, Upstate Medical and Geneseo. Community colleges have also gotten into the practice. Buffalo State has a $25,000 lobbying contract with Patricia Lynch Associates.

But no where is the use of lobbyists more obvious than at UB.

“My job is to make the best university I can,” Simpson told a Buffalo News reporter in the Capitol last week while both his in-house and one of his private lobbyists looked on.

UB officials note that they are 300 miles from the Capitol and need the presence of lobbyists, particularly when the school will have lost more than $50 million in state funding in two years if expected plans for the 2010 state budget come true.

UB has a $60,000 retainer with Meara, Avella and Dickinson, whose partners include Brian Meara, a longtime friend of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, and whose other principles were longtime Democratic and Republican Senate staffers.

Patricia Lynch Associates has a $30,000 retainer with UB’s Center for Excellence program. Lynch is a former top adviser to Silver and her firm’s lobbyists include former Assembly Majority Leader Paul Tokasz and a who’s who of former government staffers.

Another $60,000 is also going from UB to Parkside Group, whose partners include Evan Stavisky, the son of Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate’s higher education committee that has oversight responsibilities of SUNY. Stavisky last year said she barred her son — but not members of the firm — from directly lobbying her committee.

Parkside has a half-dozen public college accounts, mostly schools in the CUNY system.

Among Parkside’s clients is the Buffalo Law Society, which until two months ago was paying Parkside $4,000 a month. The lobbying included work on funding for the UB Law School, according to a recent filing by the lobbyist with a state agency that monitors Albany’s lobbying industry.

UB officials say the school appreciates any state funding that the Buffalo Law Society might get, but the school has no legal ties to the group, which is composed of graduates and supporters of the law school.

SUNY spokesman David Henahan says the campus system’s central office represents SUNY before an array of state entities and is responsible for responding to a steady stream of legislative requests for information. Individual campuses “might feel they need an increased presence” in the Legislature to deal with college-specific issues, he said, adding that the SUNY central staff and the campuses coordinate their lobbying efforts.

All the SUNY campuses that hire lobbyists — except Purchase — pay them using only “nonstate resources,” Henahan said. In some cases, such as Buffalo State and UB, that means funding from their nonprofit foundations — which are supported through donations and endowments — that support campus programs.

Most SUNY and CUNY colleges have their own internal offices involved in government affairs. On state lobbying forms, UB listed 42 separate people who might lobby the state on behalf of the school, though most would have just brief contact with a lawmaker or member of the Paterson administration.

In his long career with the Buffalo city government, James Milroy said the city was helped by having a private lobbyist on the ground in Albany.

“When I came here, I became an advocate for an Albany lobbyist,” said Milroy, who is now the assistant vice president for budget and government relations at SUNY Geneseo. The school is paying $25,000 this year to Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, a white-shoe Albany law and lobbying firm with deep connections at the Capitol.

The college pays for its lobbyists from Campus Auxiliary Services, which runs the dorm and food concessions at the school.

“We’re not using state dollars to turn around and lobby the state,” said Milroy, the former city finance commissioner.

Colleges say their government affairs offices can’t necessarily be in Albany when key decisions are made about the budget and other issues important to the colleges.

“It’s just somebody on the ground. Decisions in Albany can be made in nanoseconds. Having someone in Albany, identifiable with the campus, we find to be absolutely necessary,” Milroy said.

Public colleges in New York use lobbyists for a variety of work, according to public disclosure forms filed every two months with the Commission on Public Integrity, which monitors lobbying. In some cases, schools are looking for money to build a new facility or to buy special lab equipment. In others, they are looking for a share of pork barrel spending from the budget.

Many of the SUNY schools are using the lobbyists this year to push a bill stuck in the Legislature to give the colleges more autonomy from Albany.

The bill, pushed by Gov. David A. Paterson, would remove SUNY tuition from the state budget process and let schools raise tuition based on an annual inflation rate and let campuses set different tuition levels. It would also make it easier for schools to set up joint ventures with private firms and to streamline the current procurement process.