{"id":8119,"date":"2013-10-09T11:43:20","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T15:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=8119"},"modified":"2013-10-09T11:43:20","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T15:43:20","slug":"casd-solicitor-saved-district-millions-since-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/?p=8119","title":{"rendered":"CASD: Solicitor saved district millions since 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><span style=\"font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: medium;\">Board president responds to complaints about high legal fees<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Image-22.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8126\" alt=\"Image 2\" src=\"http:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Image-22.jpg\" width=\"129\" height=\"130\" \/><\/a>In response to residents&#8217; calls for the ouster of James Ellison, the Coatesville Area School District solicitor, School Board President Neil Campbell released the following statement:<\/p>\n<p>The Coatesville Area School District has realized significant savings as a result of the efforts of solicitor James Ellison and the law firm of Rhoads &amp;\u00a0Sinon, said School Board President Neil Campbell.<\/p>\n<p>Campbell said that Rhoads &amp;\u00a0Sinon\u00a0has saved the CASD taxpayers roughly $4.6 million since 2008, including $1.4 million in savings involving disputes over special education matters that were resolved favorably; $1.4 million in disputes involving real estate assessment appeals; and the successful effort to revoke the charter of the\u00a0Graystone\u00a0Academy Charter School.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->&#8220;The taxpayers of this district have been very well served by our solicitor. We take very seriously our commitment to\u00a0use taxpayers\u2019\u00a0dollars effectively and I&#8217;m very confident that our solicitor\u2019s\u00a0legal representation\u00a0has produced\u00a0significant savings for our district and all taxpayers,&#8221; Campbell said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a result of the firm&#8217;s representation in the\u00a0Graystone\u00a0matter, the taxpayers were saved $1.8 million in subsidies that it otherwise would have paid to the Charter School in 2012 alone. In the long term, as a result the closure of the school, the school district will save an average of $4.6 million a year,&#8221; Campbell said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There were an inordinate amount of legal proceedings raised throughout the\u00a0Graystone\u00a0matter. At each turn, Rhoads &amp;\u00a0Sinon provided\u00a0excellent and ultimately successful representation,&#8221; Campbell said.<\/p>\n<p>Rhoads &amp;\u00a0Sinon\u00a0charges the district a rate of $180 per hour, which is at the lower end of the fees charged by most school district solicitors. The firm has raised its fee just once in ten years, from $160 to the current $180 per hour.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Board president responds to complaints about high legal fees In response to residents&#8217; calls for the ouster of James Ellison, the Coatesville Area School District solicitor, School Board President Neil Campbell released the following statement: The Coatesville Area School District has realized significant savings as a result of the efforts of solicitor James Ellison and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[29,2601,2921,2922,2920],"class_list":["post-8119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-coatesville-area-school-district","tag-james-ellison","tag-rhoads-sinon","tag-school-board-president-neil-campbell","tag-the-coatesville-area-school-district"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coatesvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}