The Lake Forest Board of Education will consider an increase to the district’s school tax rate next week.
District Chief Financial Officer Kurt Kelemen brought board members a proposal to reconfigure tax rates at a meeting last month. He explained that, while the increase is necessary, the impact on property owners should be minimal.
“This includes both residential and commercial assessments,” he told board members. “So, the average assessment is $242,000. That would be an increase of $40 for the year in their school tax. The average residential assessment is lower; it would be more like about a $37 increase.”
The district has one of the lowest tax rates in Kent County. Kelemen said that he was able to keep the proposed tax increase small thanks to an operating referendum that passed with nearly two-thirds support in 2023. The district held off on planned tax increases tied to that referendum in 2025 and 2026, but Kelemen suggested it is time to bring them into effect.
"We postponed those increases for FY 25 and 26 and now we're looking at Fiscal Year 27, where we fully expect that we're going to have to now go ahead and execute on that year two referendum vote,” he said.
That tax increase was projected to bring in $600,000 in 2025, and it’s likely that that number could be slightly higher if it goes into effect in 2027.
Kelemen said he was also able to tweak certain portions of the tax rate to limit the proposed increase. He suggested a reduction in the tax rate for debt service as well as cutting back on district matching funds for some state programs.
The district faces looming financial challenges in the years ahead, including a deficit this year and a major salary increase next year.
“With this current Fiscal Year 26 final budget, we did reflect a $600,000 deficit,” Kelemen said. “And then we do have the Fiscal Year 27, the new [Lake Forest Education Association] contract becomes effective and that's going to have new pay components that add up over $500,000 in additional costs.”
Meanwhile, changes to the state’s funding formula for public schools are also on the horizon.
“With Lake Forest having one of the highest allocations in the state amongst all the public school districts, this is always a concern, especially when they talk about changing the formula,” Kelemen said. “We've already had a [Department of Education] paid study that [showed] throughout several models where Lake Forest would lose a significant amount of money when they looked at it from different perspectives and used different formulas.”
The Board of Education is expected to vote on the proposed tax rate on June 11.
