Chamblee City Manager Kathy Brannon was surprised when she read that her city was approved for a $30,000 state grant to help fund the Cure Childhood Cancer program.

She'd never heard of the program. Nor had she requested the money.

"I'm not in the business of curing cancer," she said. "I don't know who these people are."

And Ken Penuel of Fort Gaines in Southwest Georgia, head of the local economic development council, was equally perplexed by a $2,500 state grant slated for an aviation museum. His Clay County doesn't have an aviation museum.

"The information is incorrect," Penuel wrote in an email to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Turns out mistakes get made when lawmakers slip hundreds of special local grants into the $21 billion state budget in the final hours of their annual legislative session.

The Chamblee grant was for a program that wasn't in Chamblee. The lawmaker who requested it, Rep. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody), said the money is supposed to go to the DeKalb County Hospital Authority.

The National Museum of Commercial Aviation grant was supposed to go to Clayton County, not Clay County.

John Brown, House budget director, said he is working with the Department of Community Affairs to make sure those grants go to the right places. In some cases, he said lawmakers will have to try to amend the budget next year to correct the errors.

Lawmakers put 470 local grants —worth $6 million— into the budget on the last day of the 2008 session. Most legislators who voted on the budget didn't see it until the final hours of the session.

Brown said about 10 or so grants get misidentified each year. Either the recipient isn't right or the purpose for the grant is incorrect. After the budget is signed, the Department of Community Affairs contacts recipients and eventually errors are fixed, although sometimes programs wind up having to wait until the next year for the money.

Considering the volume, and the way they are inserted at the last minute, Brown said, "I guess we are fortunate only 10 or 15 [every year] are wrong."