In late July, as Miami-Dade leaders confronted the county's worst budget crisis in decades, Commissioner Natacha Seijas boarded American Airlines Flight 56 for a weeklong trip to Ireland.

In September, a day after commissioners voted to lay off more than 500 county workers and cut millions in funding to social service groups, Seijas hopped on a plane for seven days in Brazil. In October, as commissioners imposed steep salary cuts on three unions, Commissioner Audrey Edmonson and her chief of staff embarked on a 12-day journey through Senegal and South Africa.

Taxpayers picked up the tab for commissioners and their county entourages on each trip, which were arranged by the International Trade Consortium, a county agency designed to open global markets for Miami-Dade businesses.

Despite spending more than $217,000 on nine trips since 2007, ITC executive director J.A. ``Tony'' Ojeda Jr. could not identify a single contract signed as a result of the missions. In fact, the agency stopped keeping such records four years ago after a Miami Herald review found them grossly exaggerating the trips' economic benefit.

To critics, the International Trade Consortium has become a punch line.

``It's sort of a common joke that the ITC is International Travel for Commissioners,'' said Mario Artecona, executive director of the Miami Business Forum, which represents the region's top business leaders.

The ITC journeys include stops at luxury hotels from Mumbai to Istanbul, extended stays for personal vacations in South Africa and, in one case, the cost of flying a county staffer across the country to help public officials change planes.

Created in 2002 by the County Commission, the ITC's primary aim is to spur trade between greater Miami companies and the world. To do so, the government agency brings Miami businesses on as many as four trade missions a year to destinations ranging from Poland to Japan. The businesses pay their own way, but travel under the county's seal of approval.

Yet on more than half of the trade missions since 2007, commissioners and county staffers outnumbered the Miami-Dade businesses they were supposed to be promoting, The Miami Herald found.

On the most recent trip to Africa, the cost of which has not been tallied, there wasn't a single active Miami-Dade business. All told, the missions since 2007 have included five commissioners, one mayoral aide and 16 commission aides and county staff, records show.

Despite a $444 million budget hole that forced county leaders to tighten spending, Miami-Dade commissioners refuse to give up their taxpayer-funded jaunts.

Like many county agencies, the ITC's annual funding took a hit -- from $1.6 million a year to $1.2 million. Yet a proposal to eliminate the ITC was defeated by commissioners during September's tense budget debates, and plans are afoot for a trip to Germany in spring 2010. Chairman Dennis Moss, who led a 2007 mission to the Bahamas, voiced strong support for the agency.

Nobody questions the importance of trade. But, Artecona said, the face of trade should be ``a professional whose sole purpose is to promote Miami-Dade'' -- such as the head of the Beacon Council, the county's other publicly funded economic development group.

`JUST RIDICULOUS'

``My opinion is that commissioners should focus on domestic issues,'' Artecona added. ``The reach is just ridiculous.''