Hillary Clinton charges $300,000 a speech, and that’s her special university rate.

Her husband, Bill, earns about $189,000 per speech and once raked in $750,000 for a talk to a telecommunications company in Hong Kong. A host of politicians, from Al Gore to Dick Cheney to Mitt Romney, collect tens of thousands of dollars when they step behind podiums.

Against that backdrop, the decision by Boston 2024 to pay former governor Deval Patrick $7,500 a day to be an ambassador for a Beantown Olympics seems like a good deal. Patrick, after all, is articulate, knowledgeable, and a pal of President Obama. He also said he was going to focus on making money after he left the Corner Office.

Yet his daily rate raised a lot of eyebrows, particularly at the Boston Herald. The Herald’s Joe Battenfeld called Patrick’s pay “obscene” and said “Boston’s Olympic bid has been exposed for what it really is – a power and money grab for the city’s politically connected elite.” A Herald editorial criticizes Patrick for taking money for what should be volunteer work. And a Herald news story suggests all the ex-Patrick administration officials working for Boston 2024 will be facing a lot of ethics challenges.

Boston 2024 disclosed Patrick’s compensation, along with the salaries of a host of staffers, lobbyists, and strategists, on Monday after being pressured to do so by Boston Mayor Martin Walsh. Topping the salary list is CEO Rich Davey, who will be making $300,000 a year. Other staffers include COO Erin Murphy ($215,000), general counsel Paige Scott Reed ($182,500), chief administrative officer Joe Rull ($175,000), and assistant general counsel Amy Sennett ($120,000).

Former state Sen. Jack Hart is being paid $10,000 a month to lobby his old colleagues in the Legislature to back the Olympics bid. William F. Coyne Jr. is getting $10,000 a month to develop an “overall legislative and city relations strategy,” according to lobbyist filings. Northwind Strategies and Keyser Public Strategies will each be making $15,000 a month plotting how to make Boston Olympics-worthy.

There’s also fundraiser Steve Roche ($20,000 a month), former Walsh campaign aide Chris Keohan ($10,000 a month), digital marketing firm SwiftKurrent ($9,000 per month), the Archipelago Strategies Group ($5,000 a month), and the Rev. Jeffrey Brown ($5,000 a month), who will be working on community outreach.

These employees and firms, of course, are only the hired guns. The real power players are working behind the scenes and donating their services or providing them at a reduced rate. The big guns include Elkus Manfredi, Mintz Levin, Mass Mutual, Deloitte, Hill Holliday, Bain Consulting, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, CBT Architects, Vertex, and the Boston Consulting Group.

–BRUCE MOHL

BEACON HILL

Lowell Sun political columnist Peter Lucas says Attorney General Maura Healey’s indictment of already imprisoned lobbyist Richard McDonough on pension fraud charges is a signal she’s running for governor.

MARATHON BOMBING TRIAL

Extensive surveillance video allows prosecutors to piece together and show jurors the exact movements of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the time leading up to and just after the bomb blasts at the 2013 Boston Marathon finish line. CommonWealth’s winter issue explored the growing use of surveillance video to solve crime cases, spotlighting its role in the Marathon bombing investigation.

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

A former Marshfield firefighter who is the niece of the town’s fire chief and daughter of  the fire captain, both of whom are on administrative leave for undisclosed reasons, has filed a discrimination complaint against the town.

The developer of the mixed-use project at the former naval air base in South Weymouth is once again in a tax dispute with the quasi-public authority overseeing the development.

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

Republicans draw White House ire for their warning to Iran, Time reports. The letter, signed by four potential GOP presidential candidates, is getting bipartisan criticism for interfering with diplomatic efforts usually left to the president.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott denies officials at his environmental agency were barred from using the terms “global warming” or “climate change.” But he refuses to say whether he thinks global warming is real or even a problem, Governing reports.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew informs Congress the nation will run out of money next week unless the debt ceiling is raised again to avoid default.

ELECTIONS

Nate Cohn of the New York Times “The Upshot” column details the reasons why Sen. Elizabeth Warren is no Barack Obama and would struggle to build a winning coalition for the presidential nomination if she opted to run.

The Clinton’s war-room approach to Hillary’s email problem, complete with heavy doses of persecution complex, are “bad news for anyone hoping that Hillary 2016 has learned from the miscalculations of the past,” writes David Corn in Mother Jones.

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Suffolk Downs sues Scarborough Downs in Maine for $180,000, NECN reports.

EDUCATION

Two central Massachusetts community colleges and two four-year state universities team up to offer a degree for $30,000. The schools are Fitchburg State and Worcester State universities and Mount Wachusetts and Quinsigamond community colleges, the Sun reports.

A new report shows that despite the desire of the vast majority of community college students to get a bachelor’s degree, one-third of those students never apply to a four-year school and only 15 percent get the degree.

Massachusetts Teachers Association President Barbara Madeloni slams the appointment of Paul Sagan as chair of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The Springfield Republican says that the MTA needs to open up a productive conversation on charter schools

Berkshire school districts are split over PARCC and MCAS.

Dartmouth school officials have reversed an unpopular decision to make girls wear the same color robes as boys at the high school graduation to avoid discrimination and instead will let seniors decide what colors to wear.

HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE

After getting Partners HealthCare to back down from plans to acquire South Shore Hospital, Attorney General Maura Healey is now taking aim at the health care behemoth’s planned acquisition of a South Shore physician practice with 70 doctors.

Six people overdosed on heroin — and three of them died — during a 48 hour period last week in Lynn.

TRANSPORTATION

James Aloisi offers a Jeffersonian take on the Internet and the T.

The Globe’s David Scharfenberg takes a deep dive into the MBTA’s finances and suggests the agency can’t even sustain its current, subpar level of performance. Meanwhile, T ridershiphits a record high in 2014, WBUR reports.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

The Baker administration backs the Patrick administration’s solar power goal but hints that solar subsidies may have to be scaled back, State House News reports.

In a two-part series, WBUR explores the high cost of electricity and the growing debate about what to do about it.

Officials at the Abington/Rockland Joint Water Works system have notified residents the water supply is in violation of drinking water safety standards because of the discovery of contaminants from disinfectants that could have long-range health effects.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

The jaw-dropping case of Shaun Harrison, the minister working as a Boston English High School guidance official who appears to have been more gang thug than God squad, continues to unfold, with news today that he was slated to be fired on the same day he allegedly shot a 17-year-old student. The Herald reports that leaders of an in-district charter school where Harrison worked three years ago wanted to fire him after he pushed and threw a roll of tape at a student there and made inappropriate comments to other students, but they were rebuffed by Boston Public Schools administrators.

A Newburyport couple is arrested for running a prostitution operation out of their home, the Eagle-Tribune reports.

MEDIA

Gov. Charlie Baker, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stan Rosenberg joined Greater Boston host Jim Braude in his debut to talk about Olympics, budgets, and getting along.

National security reporter Bryan Bender is the latest Globe staff member to decamp to join Politico.

In the Hell has Frozen Over Dept., here’s something you never thought you’d hear: “I’m happy to be back at WRKO.” That’s from Howie Carr on the impending return of his syndicated talk show next Monday to the station that he trashed seemingly endlessly in his last seven years there.