Though there's little question that the Texas Enterprise Fund will be replenished this spring with another $295 million or so, just as Gov. Rick Perry wants, lawmakers are jockeying to gain more control over who will divvy up what is being called Texas' biggest political plum.

And where it will be spent.

And how.

In recent days, two bills have been filed to put new restrictions on the fund that is used to provide incentives to companies that expand or relocate in Texas and create new jobs. One would encourage grants in economically disadvantaged regions, such as the border. The other would require more accountability about how it is spent.

"Imagine having $300 million to give away — with no accountability, no outside oversight, no objective process," said state Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, one of the most public critics of the fund. "That's what we have here — the biggest and most political slush fund ever in Texas."

Coleman has a bill in the works that would restrict multimillion-dollar grants without rock-solid guarantees of new jobs — something Perry aides said is already being done, though it's not in state law.

And Senate and House leaders say that they expect to see more bills amid ongoing debate about whether the grants should be doled out in smaller chunks, to business incubators rather than global corporations or through a more formalized and open selection process.

Supporters of the fund say new restrictions could derail its effectiveness by curtailing its flexibility.

"We would hope that the Legislature doesn't dismantle what has been a highly successful economic development tool," Perry spokesman Robert Black said. "It's very important that people don't try to close us down and suffocate us in red tape."

At the center of the growing issue is the enterprise fund, created by the Legislature two years ago to allow Perry's economic development gurus to lure corporations to relocate or expand to Texas, and bolster its economy by creating jobs.

So far, $205.3 million of $295 million has been allocated to 17 companies and projects in exchange for a promise of more than 22,800 direct and indirect new jobs and a capital investment in Texas of more than $6.1 billion. The companies can use the state money for relocation costs, new buildings and anything else they want.

The biggest grants have gone to Texas' biggest urban centers, where the companies wanted to relocate and expand.

For the Austin area, it has meant $40 million for high-tech initiatives at Sematech, a research consortium that New York was trying to lure away, with a promise of 4,000 jobs in coming years; $8.5 million for a Home Depot call center in Austin and a distribution center in New Braunfels, to add more than 800 jobs; and $600,000 for outdoors outfitter Cabela's to open stores in Fort Worth and Buda and create 600 jobs. If the jobs don't materialize, the companies will have to return some of the money.

As Perry announced the projects in rapid-fire succession in recent months and grabbed headlines for himself, questions began to surface. Officials in counties on the Mexican border said they were left out. Rural lawmakers began talking up a regional allocation of the funds to ensure that urban centers don't get all the projects.

"I think we ought to be giving it to them (companies) piecemeal, as they meet milestones, rather than in one lump sum," Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston said. "A lot of the companies who are getting the money are multibillion-dollar enterprises who could go to investors to do what we're paying them to do. I'm not so sure we ought not to use the enterprise fund as an incubator for startup businesses."

Perry aides say some grants have been awarded in a lump sum, but many companies are getting the funds as milestones are met.

Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville, has filed a bill (SB 277) that would require that impoverished regions get greater consideration for grants and allow the fund to be used for job training alongside job creation. In addition, Perry would have to develop a long-range plan for the fund to be submitted to the Legislature, a move that could give lawmakers more say-so in how it is spent.

"I support Gov. Perry and applaud him for all that he's done so far with the fund," Lucio said. "But I also think this would improve the oversight and accountability of the fund. It gets away from people saying it is only being used politically. It's a very sensitive issue along the border."

Sens. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, and Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, are co-authors of the bill. Shapleigh has filed a separate bill (SB105) that would add new reporting requirements to measure the grants' impact: jobs promised vs. jobs created each year, how many of those new jobs have health benefits, how many small companies got grants, among other things.

Perry aides argue that political rhetoric is driving some of the criticism.

"Despite what some people might have you believe, the program is operated with appropriate controls and a structured process for receiving, evaluating and making decisions on which grants to fund," said Kathy Walt, Perry's press secretary. "The local communities are driving force in this process . . . We're in very stiff competition with other states for these jobs."

Members of Perry's executive and economic-development staffs meet weekly with representatives from Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, House Speaker Tom Craddick and various state agencies to review and analyze pending proposals for grants. Craddick and Dewhurst have outside advisers familiar with private business who help evaluate them. To formalize that process into state law, or create committees to oversee it could stifle the flexibility of the process, Perry aides said.

Critics say too much of the current selection and review process is done out of public view, where conflicts and back-room deals can flourish if not tightly monitored.

Even so, Perry aides counter, there have been no indications of troubles with the process. Contracts are signed with each company that receives a grant to ensure that the promises of new jobs and capital investment are carried out, they said. The governor's office monitors compliance.

In addition to seeking $300 million to replenish the fund, Perry is asking the Legislature for $300 million for a new Emerging Technology Fund that can grow Texas research into cutting-edge technologies of the future — a market that Perry, in his State of the State speech Wednesday, said will generate $3 trillion in global revenue during the next decade.

"California is investing $3 billion in one area of biotechnology (stem cell research); Ohio is putting up $1.1 billion for technology commercialization; and Kansas — yes, Kansas — is investing half a billion dollars in biotechnology," Perry said. "We can't afford to be left behind."

To critics such as Coleman, the selection criteria for the enterprise fund should be tighter, the process more public, the results more accountable.

Coleman questioned whether Citgo Petroleum Corp., for example, would have relocated its headquarters to Houston even without incentives totaling $5 million, though company officials have said the money, which also will be used at its Corpus Christi refinery, cinched the deal.

"I don't know why this program is not a loan program, at a low interest rate . . . The way we've set this up, it's a corporate welfare program."