HARRISBURG — When legislators negotiate a state budget each year with the governor, they bargain for the right to distribute some money to programs of their choosing. This year that portion was said to be $360 million, but legislators refuse to say where they put the money.

Moreover, they don't have to tell anyone. According to several Pennsylvania lawyers who advocate for greater openness in government, here's why:

For one thing, the state Legislature is exempt from Pennsylvania's open-records law, which is designed to ensure public access to information at all levels of government. That exemption could disappear if pending proposals to expand the law to include the Legislature are approved.

Even if the Legislature is covered by the state's relatively weak open-records law, clues to lawmakers' spending choices can be shielded by another existing exemption for notes and other unofficial documents that lead up to a decision.

Beyond that, lawmakers could simply avoid creating a single document that catalogues which programs received the money, using a provision that excuses officials from having to create a document to satisfy a request for public records.

Advocates say, however, there are reasons for lawmakers to make it clear how they allocate money.

"If you hide those records from the people ... you're going to create mistrust," said Craig Staudenmaier, a Harrisburg lawyer who is general counsel for the Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition.

Some of the money, if not all of it, goes into grant programs that are known informally as "walking around money" — a nickname that is a throwback to the days when legislators exclusively controlled the money. The WAMs subsidize a wide range of community services and projects, from St. Patrick's Day parades to sewer pipelines — money for which a legislator can claim credit.

Money for the grants, and whatever other purpose the Legislature allocated the $360 million, is included somewhere in the state's 216-page budget bill that Gov. Ed Rendell signed July 17.

Some of the grants have names like "community revitalization and assistance" and "urban development." But it is not clear which of the hundreds of programs in the budget received shares of the $360 million, and lawmakers aren't telling.

That secrecy is only one of the problems that some open-government advocates see with such funds.

Executive branch officials must, as a constitutional matter, retain the authority to disburse the grants. However, grant applications are typically made through the local legislator, and Rendell administration officials acknowledge that the most likely to receive approval are the ones that arrive with a recommendation by legislative leaders.

The control that legislative leaders and executive branch officials exert over grants that help the image — and re-election chances — of rank-and-file legislators is a corrupting, if not unconstitutional, relationship, some advocates say.

In response to numerous requests by The Associated Press, legislators and legislative staff members have offered various explanations for not revealing the programs the Legislature funded, WAMs or otherwise. Others would not discuss the matter at all, and still others did not return telephone calls.

Some said there is no "list." Asked to make a list, they said the final destination of the $360 million could not be separated from an overall budget of $27.2 billion, since the whole was a negotiated product between Democrats and Republicans in the two chambers and the governor's office.