The people at Port Everglades lived the good life. Now the good life has turned on them.

For years, the port paid top dollar for everything from vodka to plane trips, from private attorneys to administrators' salaries. It maintained a fleet of 30 take-home cars, for everyone from the port director to a publicity assistant. Commissioners jetted around the world first-class and entertained clients at $40,000 stone-crab luncheons in New York.

Year after year, as free spending helped drive the commission budget up a staggering 421 percent, taxpayers didn't much care because port profits, not property taxes, were footing the bill.

All that changed in July. The port announced a $300 million expansion and said it would need taxpayers' cash to pay for it. Suddenly, the spotlight was on Port Everglades. Taxpayers, county officials and business groups wanted to know how the port was spending its money.

Port commissioners likely will face those furious questions at 5 p.m. today from the hundreds of taxpayers expected to descend on the final public hearing on the tax, the first in six years.

After the public has its say, commissioners expect to approve a tax rate of no more than 57 cents per $1,000 of assessed property value. The owner of a $100,000 home would pay $42.75 -- one of the highest port taxes in the country.

Like the 200-plus taxpayers at the first public hearing, today's crowd is likely to agree with port watchdog Helen Ferris. Had the port been less extravagant, she says, it would have money today to pay for some of the expansion instead of tapping taxpayers so heavily.

"We should not be saddled with the tax," she said last week. "The money that is spent on frivolous things adds up."

The tax revolt of 1989 has forced commissioners and port administrators to figure out where their money is going. Some of the answers, compiled by their consultants and staff and reporters, have surprised even them:

* The port pays top dollar to its administrators, up to $40,000 more than at other ports. Director Joel Alesi makes $105,000 a year; the national average is $69,000. Attorney Linwood Cabot earns $90,000, far above the $51,000 national average. In all, 21 port administrators earn at least $50,000 annually.

* Since 1988, the port has hired 20 new executives, secretaries and administrative aides, many at top dollar. Four of the commissioners have their own full-time assistants. Port consultant Booz-Allen & Hamilton said the aides aren't needed and noted only one other port in the country -- Seattle -- hires aides for its commissioners.

* The port paid $3.1 million between January and July for private attorneys, consultants and lobbyists, many with political and personal ties to the port. Former port commissioner Jean Fitzgerald works for one consultant, former port Director C. Thomas Burke for another. Current port Chairman Walter Browne works for a lobbyist.

* Booz-Allen says the port wastes $3 million a year on 53 unnecessary employees, most of them in engineering, operations and public safety.

* The port has 30 take-home cars, for everyone from Alesi to a publicity coordinator to employees in the public works department. Booz-Allen says that's far more than other ports allow.

* In the past two years, commissioners and administrators have jetted to Aruba; Milan, Italy; London; Bermuda; Brazil; Belgium; the Bahamas; San Francisco; New York; New Orleans; and Los Angeles. They often flew first-class, stayed in $255-a-night hotel rooms, ate the best food and drank the best liquor: filet mignon, Maine lobster, Absolut vodka, Tanqueray gin.