Bergen County, N.J., Sets $15M Jail Food Cap; Sheriff Asks $54K Fee

Bergen TV Exclusive: HACKENSACK, N.J. — Bergen County commissioners voted 6-0 on Oct. 7 to award Aramark Correctional Services a new five-year contract capped at $15,000,000 to feed detainees at the Bergen County Jail and residents of the county’s Housing, Health and Human Services Center. County payment and procurement records obtained through the Open Public Records Act show the new ceiling is 65.4% higher than the 2021 contract award—even as actual county spending on Aramark fell four straight years to $1,616,856.66 in 2025, and even as the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office demanded $54,000.00 in officer overtime to release meal-count records.

Bid pricing tables and evaluation scorecards released by Bergen County on Oct. 19 under OPRA request B021799-100826 reveal for the first time how the two bids were priced and scored:

• Aramark’s new meal prices do not explain the $3 million-a-year ceiling: Under Bid Table BT-05EP, Aramark bid a fixed daily basket of $5,671.14 a day based on 900 inmates served three meals a day (2,700 meals at $1.727 each), 200 officer and staff meals a day (at $3.91 each), and 131 shelter meals a day (at $1.727 each). Even if the jail held 900 inmates every day of the year, that fixed bid works out to $2,069,965 a year, or $10.35 million over five years—nearly $1 million a year below the county’s new $3,000,000 annual encumbrance for 2027 through 2030.
• Only three of six listed reviewers scored the proposals—all from the Sheriff’s Office: Although Section II of the county’s specifications states that proposals “will be conducted by a committee of five (5) individuals,” the county’s evaluation scorecard lists six officials and shows that only three submitted scores: Jail Warden Nick Grella (98 points), Corrections Tour Commander Michael Cumiskey (100 points), and Jail Administration Capt. Paul Allegretta (94 points). All three County Division of Purchasing officials listed on the scorecard—Purchasing Director Pete Gerrity, Principal Purchasing Assistant Jacki Tate, and Public Agency Compliance Officer Michael Kupec—recorded no scores.
• The OPRA Catch-22: When challenger Trinity Services Group asked the county during the bidding process for copies of Aramark’s July 2025–July 2026 monthly invoices and actual staff dining participation to prepare a competitive bid, the county replied in Addenda 2 on July 31: “Can be requested via OPRA.” Yet when those same 2022–2026 meal invoices and meal-count records were requested under OPRA from the Sheriff’s Office, Capt. Allegretta—one of the three bid scorers—sent third-party kitchen-repair bills instead of meal invoices for 2022–2025 and demanded an estimated $54,000.00 (about 500 hours of officer overtime) to pull hard-copy shift meal-count forms.

Actual spending fell every year from 2022 to 2025

Resolution 1311-26, adopted Oct. 7, 2026, awards Contract No. 2600301 to Philadelphia-based Aramark Correctional Services, LLC for the five-year term from Oct. 18, 2026, through Oct. 17, 2031. The resolution sets a not-to-exceed ceiling of $15,000,000.00, encumbering $625,000 for the remainder of 2026, $3,000,000 a year from 2027 through 2030, and $2,375,000 for 2031.

The previous five-year contract (Resolution 859-21, adopted Oct. 6, 2021) was awarded at a ceiling of $9,071,250.00, or $1,815,000 a year for 2022 through 2025. Commissioners raised that cap twice—by $286,402.66 in April 2023 (Resolution 472-23) and by $182,864.72 in December 2024 (Resolution 1498-24)—to cover contingency meals while kitchen floors were replaced at the jail, bringing the amended five-year cap to $9,540,517.38.

County vendor payment histories obtained under OPRA show that what Bergen County actually paid Aramark dropped for four consecutive calendar years:

• 2022: $2,198,322.56
• 2023: $2,073,186.16
• 2024: $1,839,543.05
• 2025: $1,616,856.66
• 2026 (through Oct. 9): $1,472,397.20 (bringing total payments between Oct. 18, 2021, and Oct. 9, 2026, to $9,440,055.77, or $100,461.61 below the amended cap with eight days left in the contract term).

A not-to-exceed figure is a spending ceiling rather than a guaranteed payout, because the county pays per meal ordered and served. Even so, the county’s new $3 million annual encumbrance is 85.5% higher than what the county actually paid Aramark in 2025. When asked under OPRA for the backup calculations and Chief Financial Officer certification of funds supporting the $15 million ceiling, the county responded on Oct. 19: “The County is not in possession of any memorandum. As for item 1: Certification of funds is not an independent document with backup records. The certification of funds is done through the creation of Contract #2100360 which is noted on the resolution. As the contract has not been executed and is still in draft stage, the County does not have a contract to provide.”

County contracts are funded through countywide property taxes. Bergen County homeowners can check how county, municipal, and school levies affect their annual bill with the free GardenState.ai Property Tax Calculator and test future budget scenarios with the GardenState.ai Tax Shock tool.

What the newly released bid tables show: Aramark vs. Trinity Services Group

Only two companies bid on BC-RFP-26-003 when proposals closed Aug. 25, 2026—down from three bidders in 2021: incumbent Aramark Correctional Services, LLC and challenger Trinity Services Group, Inc. of Oldsmar, Florida. Both companies submitted pricing on the county’s Euna Procurement bid form (BT-05EP), which asked for two pricing baskets: a fixed daily price (Basket 1) and an occupancy-based sliding scale (Basket 2) using a baseline of 900 inmates (2,700 inmate meals a day), 200 officer/staff meals a day, and 131 meals a day at the Housing, Health and Human Services Complex (BCHHHS) at 120 South River St.

Notably, the written RFP specifications contained an internal contradiction on the inmate threshold: Section 71 () and the bid table used 900 inmates, whereas Section VI.1 () still stated that “the base-line for the inmate population will be 775 inmates per meal”—the cutoff from the 2021 contract.

Here is how the two bidders priced each line item:

• Fixed Inmate Meal (2,700 meals/day at 900 inmates): Aramark bid $1.727 per meal ($4,662.90/day). Trinity bid $2.388 per meal ($6,447.60/day) under Option 1 (three hot meals daily) and $2.111 ($5,699.70/day) under Option 2 (one cold and two hot meals daily).
• Sliding-Scale Inmate Meal (Below 900 / Above 900 inmates): Aramark bid $1.820 per meal when jail occupancy is below 900 inmates ($4,914.00/day at 2,700 meals) and $1.727 above 900 inmates ($4,662.90/day). Under the expiring 2021 contract, Aramark charged $1.835 ($1.84) per meal below 775 occupancy and $1.35 above 775. That means Aramark’s new below-threshold inmate meal price ($1.82) is actually 1.5 cents lower than its 2021 rate below 775 inmates. Trinity bid $2.969 / $2.281 under Option 1 and $2.601 / $2.020 under Option 2.
• Officer and Staff Dining Room Meals (200 meals/day baseline): Aramark raised its staff meal price to $3.91 fixed and above 200 meals ($782.00/day), and $4.01 below 200 meals ($802.00/day)—up from $3.48 under the 2021 contract. Trinity bid $4.48 fixed and below 200 meals ($896.00/day), and $4.00 above 200 meals ($800.00/day).
• Housing, Health and Human Services Complex Shelter Meals (131 meals/day baseline): Aramark bid $1.727 fixed and above 131 meals ($226.24/day), and $1.820 below 131 meals ($238.42/day). Trinity bid $2.840 / $2.281 under Option 1 and $2.490 / $2.020 under Option 2.
• Daily Basket Totals: On the fixed-price basket (Basket 1), Aramark’s daily total was $5,671.14 ($2,069,965/year), compared with $7,715.64 ($2,816,209/year) for Trinity Option 1 and $6,921.89 ($2,526,490/year) for Trinity Option 2. Combining Basket 1 and Basket 2 on the procurement scorecard produced a composite figure of $17,296.69 for Aramark versus $24,257.49 for Trinity Option 1 and $21,685.40 for Trinity Option 2.

Even if the county paid Aramark’s higher below-900 sliding-scale rate on a full 900 inmates every day of the year ($5,954.42/day for inmate, staff, and shelter meals combined), annual spending would be $2,173,363—more than $826,000 a year below the county’s $3,000,000 annual ceiling. Reaching $3,000,000 a year at Aramark’s $1.727-to-$1.82 inmate meal prices would require serving roughly 3,944 to 4,169 inmate meals a day, or 1,315 to 1,390 inmates a day—exceeding the jail’s maximum physical capacity of 1,250 beds stated in Section I.1 of the RFP.

Who scored the bids: three Sheriff’s Office officials, zero Purchasing scorers

Section II of the county’s RFP specifications states that “the proposal evaluation process will be conducted by a committee of five (5) individuals selected by the Undersheriff in charge of the Corrections Division or his designee,” scoring proposals on Experience and Past Performance (30 points), Personnel Qualifications (30 points), and Cost (40 points).

However, the county’s “Evaluation Group 2 – Agency Review” scorecard (`Scoring_by_Reviewer.pdf`) lists six individuals—three from the Sheriff’s Office and three from the County Division of Purchasing—and shows that only the three Sheriff’s Office officials entered scores:

• Michael Cumiskey (BCSO Corrections Tour Commander): 100 points for Aramark (30/30 Experience, 30/30 Personnel, 40/40 Cost).
• Nick Grella (Bergen County Jail Warden): 98 points for Aramark (29/30 Experience, 29/30 Personnel, 40/40 Cost).
• Capt. Paul Allegretta (BCSO Jail Administration & OPRA Custodian): 94 points for Aramark (27/30 Experience, 27/30 Personnel, 40/40 Cost).
• Pete Gerrity (County Purchasing Director / Qualified Purchasing Agent), Jacki Tate (Principal Purchasing Assistant), and Michael Kupec (Public Agency Compliance Officer): no scores recorded across all categories.

Averaging the three Sheriff’s Office reviewers gave Aramark a final score of 97.33 out of 100 points (28.67 Experience, 28.67 Personnel, 40.00 Cost), ranking #1 in every category. Trinity Services Group received 79.00 out of 100 points (25.33 Experience, 25.33 Personnel, 28.33 Cost), with warning icons displayed next to both of Trinity’s technical scores on the summary dashboard; the county did not release the reviewer-by-reviewer breakdown for Trinity’s score.

“Can be requested via OPRA” — followed by a $54,000 OPRA bill

The procurement records also shed new light on the Sheriff’s Office’s handling of public records requests for Aramark’s meal counts and invoices. During the RFP question-and-answer period (`Addenda 2`, generated July 31, 2026), Trinity Services Group specifically asked the county for two sets of historical billing records:

1. “Trinity respectfully requests copies of the monthly invoices submitted by the incumbent contractor and associated payment records for the period July 2025 through July 2026. This information will assist proposers in understanding historical meal volumes, billing practices, and contract utilization to develop the most accurate and competitive pricing proposal possible.”
2. “The specifications indicate that the baseline for staff meals is fixed at 200 meals per day for pricing purposes. Please clarify how staff dining services are billed under the current contract… Please provide the average daily number of staff meals actually served for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and night shift meals during the most recent twelve (12) month period.”

To both questions, the county gave the same four-word answer: “Can be requested via OPRA.”

Yet when those exact records—Aramark’s 2021–2026 invoices and periodic meal-count reports—were requested from the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office under OPRA on Oct. 9, 2026, here is what happened:

• On Oct. 14, the Sheriff’s Office released three PDF files labeled “2022-2023 Invoices,” “2024 Invoices,” and “2025 Invoices” (71 pages total). An audit of every page showed they were not Aramark’s weekly meal invoices to Bergen County; instead, they were third-party kitchen equipment repair, hood-cleaning, and supply bills sent by outside vendors to Aramark.
• On Oct. 19, Capt. Paul Allegretta—one of the three officials who scored the Aramark RFP—sent 319 pages of 2021 Aramark weekly meal invoices (`$1,058,753.87` total across 53 weekly invoices plus three retroactive price-adjustment invoices), but denied the request for periodic meal-count reports from 2021 to the present. Capt. Allegretta wrote that “the BCSO does not have monthly meal count records separate from the invoices,” and said the closest records were hard-copy breakfast, lunch, and dinner shift forms stored in daily squad files. Pulling nearly six years of those forms, he wrote, would take “approximately five hundred hours” of officer overtime at an estimated cost of $54,000.00 (~$108 per hour): “If you are willing to pay this cost, please let me know. Otherwise, we will consider this request closed.”

What the 319 pages of 2021 invoices actually revealed

A line-by-line audit of the 319 pages of 2021 invoices produced by the Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 19 uncovered three key facts:

1. Weekly meal-count summaries already exist inside the invoice packets: Attached behind each week’s Aramark jail invoice is a printed Aramark spreadsheet titled “Bergen County Meal Count Summary”—a weekly grid listing each day’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner counts for Census, Diets, Veggie/Vegan, Kosher, Halal, Regular Trays, CallBacks, Sacks, Inmate Total Billed, and Staff.
2. A flat 1,400 staff meals billed every week—and a 136% staff meal price jump: Across all 53 weekly invoices in 2021, Aramark billed Bergen County for 510,209 inmate meals and a flat 1,400 officer/staff meals every single week (200 per day, totaling 74,200 staff meals and $134,769.60 in 2021). When the 2021 contract took effect on Oct. 18, 2021, the per-meal price for those 1,400 weekly staff meals jumped 136%, from $1.476 to $3.48 per meal—adding roughly $145,900 a year in staff dining charges. Under the new 2026–2031 bid, that staff meal rate rises again to $3.91–$4.01 per meal ($284,648 to $292,730 a year at 200 meals a day).
3. A 3,024-meal conflict on the week of Oct. 28–Nov. 3, 2021: On Nov. 17, 2021, Aramark issued three retroactive “price difference” invoices (`000863`, `000864`, and `000865`, totaling $9,301.33) to back-bill the Oct. 18, 2021 contract rate hike (+$0.107 per inmate meal and +$2.004 per staff meal). For the week of Oct. 28–Nov. 3, 2021, regular invoice `200332100-000855` (“2021 Invoices 2.pdf,” ) billed the county for 7,760 inmate meals. Yet retroactive invoice `200332100-000865` () for the exact same dates billed the rate increase on 10,784 inmate meals—a discrepancy of 3,024 inmate meals ($323.57).

On Oct. 20, formal written notice was sent to Capt. Allegretta and Sheriff’s Office legal counsel Daniel Zwillenberg declining the unitemized $54,000 fee under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(c), requesting the unproduced 2022–2026 weekly Aramark meal invoices (with their attached weekly Meal Count Summaries) as immediate-access bills and vouchers under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(e), and narrowing the hard-copy shift-form request to a single week—Oct. 28 through Nov. 3, 2021 (21 forms, or about 105 minutes on the Sheriff’s Office’s own estimate)—to resolve the 3,024-meal discrepancy between invoices `000855` and `000865`. As of Monday, Oct. 26, the Sheriff’s Office had not responded.

A review of New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJ ELEC) annual pay-to-play disclosures (`Form BE`) shows that Aramark Correctional Services, LLC filed short-form disclosures for 2024 (Entity ID 13149, filed Feb. 5, 2025) and 2025 (Entity ID 19118, filed Feb. 18, 2026) reporting no reportable New Jersey political contributions; Trinity Services Group had no Form BE filings on record for 2024 or 2025. There is no allegation of criminal wrongdoing in the records reviewed.

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Sources

• Bergen County OPRA Request B021799-100826 releases (Oct. 9, Oct. 15, and Oct. 19, 2026): Certified Resolution 1311-26 (adopted Oct. 7, 2026); Resolution 39-26 (adopted Jan. 14, 2026); Resolution 859-21 and executed Contract #2100360; Resolutions 472-23 and 1498-24; BC-RFP-26-003 specifications (`Jail_-_Food_Service_Specs_2026_-_Revised.pdf`) and `Addenda_1.pdf` / `Addenda_2.pdf`; `Bid_Table__BT-05EP_-_Base_Low_Cost_ARAMARK.xlsx`; `TSG_Bid_Table_Option_1_-_Hot__Hot__Hot_Meal_Pattern_-_TRINITY_SERVCIES.xlsx`; `TSG_Bid_Table_Option_2-_Cold__Hot__Hot_Meal_Pattern_-_TRINITY_SERVICES.pdf`; `Scoring_Summary.pdf`, `Scoring_Rank.pdf`, and `Scoring_by_Reviewer.pdf`; 2021–2025 County `VENHIST` vendor payment printouts and 2026 FAS Vendor Encumbered/Paid Detail (`c35746ec.pdf`).
• Bergen County Sheriff’s Office OPRA releases (Oct. 14 and Oct. 19, 2026, Capt. Paul Allegretta): `2021 Invoices 1.pdf` (129 pages), `2021 Invoices 2.pdf` (190 pages), `ADP 1-1-2021 to present.pdf`, `2022-2023 Invoices.pdf`, `2024 Invoices.pdf`, `2025 Invoices.pdf`, and Oct. 19–20, 2026 OPRA correspondence.
• Bergen County Official Directory (June 2026) and Bergen County Sheriff’s Office Command Staff.
• New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJ ELEC) 2024 and 2025 Business Entity Annual Statements (`Form BE`).