Crime and punishment. Remember the farmer in the dell, who took a wife, who took a dog, who took a cat, who … You get the idea.

The same thing happens in local government when the criminal justice system is involved. Crime gets out of control so you hire more law enforcement officers. So you hire more prosecuting attorneys. So you hire more public defenders. And probation officers. Eventually you need more judges, clerks, bailiffs and court reporters. And more jails and prisons.

“I think everyone on this board is aware of the domino effect,” Spokane County Commissioner Phil Harris put it this week after the approval of a staffing increase in the prosecuting attorney’s office touched off a round of hiring requests in other offices.

It makes one wonder why effective crime-prevention programs, from job training to drug court, aren’t more popular.

A lesson well learned. Boundary County, Idaho, has driven the first nail into the coffin of its noxious, anti-public school movement by solidly approving a two-year levy to keep its school system intact. With 57 percent approval for the levy, education supporters know now that the vast majority in the district supports their efforts, if they provide good information and can coax voters to the polls. Generally, naysayers thrive in elections where turnout is low and confusion reigns.

The winners Tuesday, however, weren’t educators, or even the community, but the children of Boundary County who faced school without sports and extracurricular activities, such as student government, if the levy failed – a bare bones environment that would have chased top students to other districts. Elementary students at tiny Naples were also winners because their school will now stay open.

The losers, of course, are the individuals who see waste and conspiracy every time they look at the schools. Their days of disproportionate influence are numbered.