"Unfortunately, it's done without full discussion at public hearings, " said John Andrew Smith, staff director of the Senate Committee on Appropriations.

Last year, Wetherell created a fictitious $1.1 million line item in the budget -- for the restoration of Silver Beach, even though there is no such place -- so he could have a fund from which to dole out money to legislators for special projects.

Wetherell said money has been put aside every year. He just did "the stupid thing" in giving it a phony name.

"The process itself may not be so bad. The way it's been used may be inappropriate and harmful to the state, " said Dade delegation chairman Rep. Elaine Bloom, D-Miami Beach. "My response is to give the auditor general the responsibility to go in and check on what's been done with the money."

Part of the problem is that few people in state government -- including legislators -- understand the appropriations process. Another problem is the speed with which bills are approved during the 60-day legislative session.

The process is so confusing that last year, Sen. Carrie Meek, D-Miami, thought she had been successful in getting a $200,000 appropriation for Youth Crime Watch of Dade County, the group that works with the Dade County School Board.

But the money went to Youth Crime Watch of America, a different group that trains students throughout the state.

Often legislators rely on lobbyists to help them find sources of money and convince the appropriation staffs that a project should be funded.

Rep. Rojas said a lobbyist told him where to find $400,000 for a road project in Hialeah.

Rojas offered a frank account of how he and other members of the Dade Cuban-American Caucus sat around one day in 1989 deciding how to get their pet projects funded.

The group had made a deal with Gustafson not to support his Democratic opponent for the House speaker's job. Gustafson told them they could "trust him" to look out for their needs -- and would give them key slots on the appropriations committee.

"I said the Hialeah chamber got $25,000. Let's ask for 100, " Rojas recalled.

Martinez kept most of the caucus' projects in the budget. But he did veto one $25,000 grant. Sponsored by former Rep. Nilo Juri, the money was for a nonprofit Hialeah group -- but Martinez's staff discovered that the group's phone number was actually a phone booth.

"People had a wish list, " Rojas said. "We were like kids with candy."

The candy belonged to Florida's taxpayers. It is impossible to come up with an exact total of how much of the state's $27 billion budget is involved. The Herald found more than $135 million in special projects in the 1989 budget -- about $22 for every household in Florida. The governor's budget experts say the amount is even higher -- around $200 million a year.

How many of those projects are a poor use of taxpayers dollars is hard to gauge. Sen. Jack Gordon, D-Miami Beach, estimated that 10 percent of the grants were "phonies" and another 30 percent were probably questionable.

"The fact of the matter is there are legitimate one-time projects that add to our quality of life, " said Rep. Mike Abrams, D-North Miami Beach. "When there are abuses, it tends to cloud the good public policy decisions we make. We need to eliminate them."

Faced with impending budget cuts and layoffs, state bureaucrats say there is enough money spent on public giveaways each year to ease the current financial crisis. In the Commerce Department, for example, none of the agency's $8 million in direct grants were cut when it was forced to reduce its budget by nearly 5 percent earlier this year.