Government earmarks have a history that reaches far beyond Washington. Even rural Wisconsin residents have been eager to feed at the public trough when they could.

For example, in the 1940s, state officials proposed reorganizing rural school districts to save tax dollars. Much of Wisconsin's population had moved off farms into cities, and policy makers wondered whether tax dollars supporting all those little one-room schoolhouses were being used wisely.

Investigators found a Juneau County school attended by children from only two families. "Three of the parents in these two families," they reported, "always constituted the school board. The families took turns regularly, year after year, at providing the odd parent, the one not a board member.

"This odd parent always was the successful bidder to furnish transportation for the children to the school they attended. Compensation for this service was approximately 25 cents a mile for every mile traveled." Since farm workers earned only about a dollar a day at the time, driving the kids to school provided more income than an honest day's labor.

Another district had more staff running its schools than it had students. Near Necedah, $1,200 in state taxes was paid annually to a district with only three pupils. Local residents paid just one-sixth of the cost to operate their schools; the rest came from state or county governments.

Abusing these funds may not have been as bad as a "Bridge to Nowhere." But it shows that avarice lurks in most every heart, and even hard-working Wisconsin farmers sometimes enjoyed their government pork.

-- Wisconsin Historical Society

"Odd Wisconsin," by Erika Janik is now available as a book from the Wisconsin Historical Society for $16.95. Visit www.wisconsinhistory.org for details.

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