Robert Gauthier: Candidate Profile

Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioKey IssuesQA Bio City: Long GroveWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Kildeer Countryside District 96 School Board (4-year Terms)Age: 51Family: Married, Wife, 2 sons, ages 26 and 22Occupation: Financial Advisor,Cetera Advisor NetworksEducation: Bachelor of Arts, Western New England CollegeCivic involvement: Candidate did not respond.Elected offices held: School Board District 96Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: noCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 We should continue to create an enviroment in our district so our teachers and staff can fulfill the mission and vison of District 96. Ensure that every child achieves his or her maximum potential, while becoming the premier elementary district in the nation.Key Issue 2 Continued Fiscal responsibility. District 96 has been consistently a high achieving low spending school district. We must continue to provide a great education for our students while not overspending our resources.Key Issue 3 Candidate did not respond.Questions Answers What do you think about the shift to the common core standards? How big a role do you think the board of education should play in setting the curriculum for students and what ideas do you have for changes to the current curriculum?The shift to common core is a positive direction for our district. We have always benchmarked ourselves to the top districts in Illinois, now we can measure our success against the top districts in the nation. The board's role in the transition to common core is to approve the standards set by our administration; develop a matrix to measure success and to hold accountable our administration to achieve those standards set with the common core.How satisfied are you that your district is preparing students for the next stage in their lives, whether it be from elementary into high school or high school into college or full-time employment? What changes, if any, do you think need to be made?Our district does a great job of preparing our elementary school kids for middle school and our middle school students for high school. Data shows that D96 students are the largest percentage of kids in honors and accelerated classes once they get to Stevenson High School. Further data shows that most of our kids report receiving A's B's once at Stevenson. We are currently preparing to have a 1:1 technology program. This will further help our middle school students prepare for Stevenson High School.What budget issues will your district have to confront and what measures do you support to address them? If you believe cuts are necessary, what programs and expenses should be reduced or eliminated? On the income side, do you support any tax increases?Over the last 4 years we have consistently worked to streamline our budgeting process so it is based on the needs of students. We have worked to control our expenses by outlining a 5 year capital improvement plan and a 5 year technology plan. We have worked to keep our residents tax bills stable. Our biggest concern is our revenue, although the majority of our revenue comes from local sources there is still close to $1 million dollars that the state of Illinois has not paid to our district for this fiscal year. In 2006 our district passed a referendum and promised the taxpayers to make the money last for one generation of students (10 years). Our 5 year projections currently show that we should surpass that promise with the money projected to go until at least 2020.As contract talks come up with various school employee groups, do you believe the district should ask for concessions from its employees, expect employee costs to stay about the same as they are now or provide increases in pay or benefits?Our District is strong financially at this time. We believe that we should match our liabilities to our revenues. In the past several years we have benchmarked our non- certified staff and our administrators? salaries to a CPI model. This has helped control one of the biggest expense items in our budget. We value our teachers and all of our staff and want them to be fairly compensated. We will try to continue to match our overall expenses with our revenues.If your district had a superintendent or other administrator nearing retirement, would you support a substantial increase in his or her pay to help boost pension benefits? Why or why not?In the past I have agreed to increase the compensation for our employees nearing retirement. I believed that I have always followed TRS guidelines when dealing with retirements of superintendents, administrators and teachers. We do not want D96 to have to pay any financial penalties to TRS due to unregulated increases in compensation.