And I, For One, Welcome Our New Expensively Educated Overlords

I'd like to remind them that as a trusted Minnesota personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their property taxpayer money mines.

[A puzzled KARNation cries out together, "What the hell are you talking about???"]

Oh, I'm just following up on the recently-passed ISD 196 levy referenda.

If you are a taxpayer in this district who will be taking out a second mortgage to pay your steeply increased property taxes from next year forward, you may not want to read this. However, if you feel you have the stomach for this, I still strongly suggest that you duct tape your head, because it will explode. I'll wait.

Ready?

District 196 has been noteworthy over the past few years because of the following:

1) It is the absolutely BEST school district in the entire universe. Period. This is always the first and last thing that leaves any 196 employee's or board member's mouth. Also, take a look at the real estate listings for South Metro properties. Note how many of them say something like "Desirable 196 schools!" There are several variations on this, but they almost always use an exclamation point.

2) The district is WOEFULLY underfunded. The School board has done a stalwart job of doing "more" with "less". It just scraped by for the longest time, and was quickly approaching mass teacher layoffs and limited bussing. And yet it has maintained the BEST darn schools in the universe.

3) The district has $30 million in reserves.

Well, the three separate levies all passed, due in no small part to the meager off-year election turnout. And now we have the projected revenue numbers for 2006 as affected by those levies.

Keep in mind: this is the best damn school district in the universe.

196 residents: one more warning. This will make your head explode.

Stop reading now while you still can.

OK. You've been warned.

Figures were found here.

The district's tax revenue from 2005: $51,988,792.

The tax revenue for 2006 (really: look away now): $75,759,414.

An increase of almost $24 million.

An increase of...

45.7 per cent.

FORTY-FIVE POINT SEVEN PERCENT!

FORTY-F**KING-FIVE POINT SEVEN PER-F**KING CENT!!!!!!!

With flatline growth in enrollment!!!!!

Which brings us to the title of this post.

If 196 was doing such a fine job of educating the youth of Apple Valley, Eagan and Rosemount before the levy increase, then I expect the little buggers to be moving objects with their minds by the time they graduate now. I fully expect that the level of education the kiddies receive from a district with $24 farging million more to spend on their education than last year will catapult each and every single one of them into Harvard or Yale (or Notre Dame for the dimmer ones) on a full ride scholarship, where they will learn quantum physics or Germanic philology that will enable them to become a superior uber-class that will rule the world and solve all its problems.

Because the better the funding, the better the education, right?

Please excuse me now.

...

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!