Lake Forest District 115 School Board President John Noble said choosing a longer debt payment plan for the recent referendum will “simplify the formula for the taxpayers, so that taxpayers are equally contributing over the life of 20 years to the value of that assets that's happening in the community.”
“They say you could do a 15-year mortgage right not a 30-year mortgage, you save all that interest,” Noble told host Pete Jansons on the Lake Forest podcast. “But what's your house payment? It's like double. So can you actually afford it?”
“And part of the rationale and the risk that you want to think about, is these assets aren't yours,” Noble said. “If you choose that on the house, and you choose to do your double payment and do all that stuff and reduce that, you actually pocket that money. In a community, in a larger asset we think about like a utility: I want to smooth it over the life, again remove risk.”
The district proposed a $105 million referendum for needed infrastructure repairs on a ballot in April of 2023, which the voters approved.
Noble was a guest alongside Lake Forest school district superintendent Matthew Montgomery on a recent episode of the Lake Forest podcast. Montgomery serves as superintendent for district 67 and 115, covering both the Lake Forest elementary schools and Lake Forest high school.
This full episode is available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
The Nov. 18th edition of the podcast focused on a variety of challenges faced by administrators in the local Lake Forest School District, including financial decisions and student mental health
The Lake Forest podcast is hosted by Pete Jansons, an entrepreneur with a background in neuroscience, Rick Lesser, an attorney and former village trustee, and Joe Weiss, who has experience in multiple government and public service positions. The podcast covers topics and politics impacting the area around the city of Lake Forest, according to the Lake Forest podcast website.
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