Bergen County, N.J., Sheriff Drops $54K Fee; Files Show $188K Overpay

Bergen TV Exclusive: HACKENSACK, N.J. — Sixty-four minutes after Bergen TV reported Monday morning that the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office had demanded an estimated $54,000.00 in officer overtime to pull jail meal-count records while county commissioners awarded food vendor Aramark Correctional Services a new five-year, $15,000,000 contract ceiling, the Sheriff’s Office reversed course and turned over 1,294 pages of 2021–2026 meal invoices, county purchase orders, and signed shift meal-count forms for $0.

A line-by-line audit of the newly released records—comprising 10 PDF volumes of 2021–2026 weekly Aramark invoices and liquidated Bergen County purchase orders (1,273 pages) shared via OneDrive at 10:44 a.m. EDT and 21 signed hard-copy “Chow Cart/Meal Accounting Forms” emailed at 11:10 a.m. EDT by Jail Administration Capt. Paul Allegretta—uncovered four major findings:

• Internal PDF timestamps show the records were assembled in under 18 minutes—not the “500 hours” ($54,000) claimed: Document metadata embedded in the PDF files (`pdfinfo`) shows that the 21 signed Chow Cart forms for Oct. 28–Nov. 3, 2021 (`Author: CMAMO`) were scanned on a Sharp MX-M5071 copier on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, at 9:15:37 a.m. EDT—literally one minute after a written notice narrowing the Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request was emailed at 9:14 a.m.—and then held for six days while the $54,000 demand remained on the table. On Monday, Oct. 26, forty minutes after Bergen TV published its morning report at 9:40 a.m. EDT and tagged `@BergenCountySo` and `@BergenCoSheriff` on X, the Sheriff’s Office exported the 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2026 invoice PDFs in 17 minutes and 45 seconds (between 10:20:05 a.m. and 10:37:50 a.m. EDT) and released the entire cache free of charge at 10:44 a.m. EDT.
• $188,016.55 in verified 2022 overpayments across 20 liquidated Bergen County purchase orders: Under Contract No. 2100360 (Resolution 859-21), Aramark’s sliding-scale price per inmate meal was $1.8350 ($1.84) when jail occupancy was below 775 inmates (fewer than 16,275 meals a week) and dropped to $1.3500 when occupancy exceeded 775 inmates (more than 16,275 meals a week). Between March 10 and Aug. 24, 2022, even though the jail’s inmate population averaged 879 to 985 inmates a day (18,459 to 20,677 meals a week), Aramark billed—and Bergen County approved and paid on 20 liquidated purchase orders—the higher $1.8350 below-775 rate instead of the $1.3500 contract rate. Across 387,663 inmate meals on those 20 weeks, Bergen County paid $711,361.60 instead of $523,345.05—an overpayment of $188,016.55 (+$0.485 per meal, or +35.9%). Handwritten black-ink strike-throughs on four July and August 2022 invoices (`000975`, `000976`, `000980`, and `000982`) and from Aug. 25, 2022 (`001000`) onward show a county reviewer crossing out `1.8350` and writing `1.35` by hand, proving officials caught the rate error on those weeks while leaving the other 20 weeks unadjusted.
• Twenty-one signed Chow Cart sheets prove 3,024 “phantom” inmate meals were billed on retroactive Invoice `000865`: Every shift’s signed “Bergen County Jail – Chow Cart/Meal Accounting Form” for breakfast, lunch, and dinner from Oct. 28 through Nov. 3, 2021, shows the jail served 7,744 housing-unit trays (an average of 368.8 inmates per meal) plus 16 callbacks and intake sacks, totaling 7,760 inmate meals—matching regular Invoice `200332100-000855` ($13,409.28). Those 21 signed forms prove that when Aramark issued retroactive rate-adjustment Invoice `200332100-000865` on Nov. 17, 2021 (paid on County Purchase Order `220567`) and billed the +$0.107 rate hike on 10,784 inmate meals ($1,153.88), it billed Bergen County for 3,024 inmate meals that never existed (+39.0%).
• Aramark’s internal cost sheet puts its base jail menu cost at $0.947 a meal—while 2025–2026 invoices confirm the county’s new $15 million cap has $1 million+ a year in excess headroom: An internal Aramark “Contingency Menu Cost Analysis” (`2023 Invoices – Meals.pdf`, ) submitted to justify $469,267.38 in kitchen-floor renovation surcharges states that Aramark’s base “Jail Menu Cost” was $0.947 per meal ($0.804 breakfast, $1.022 lunch, $1.014 dinner). Meanwhile, every regular weekly jail invoice from Sept. 1, 2022, through Sept. 30, 2026 (`Inv 001519`) billed inmate meals at $1.3500 (~885 to 940 inmates a day) alongside an unvarying flat charge for 1,400 officer/staff meals every single week at $3.48 ($4,872.00 a week, or $253,344 a year), for a total weekly run rate of roughly $31,800 to $32,500 (~$1.65 million to $1.69 million a year)—nearly half the new $3,000,000 annual ceiling.

How a $54,000 OPRA demand evaporated in 64 minutes

As reported in Bergen TV’s morning investigation, when challenger Trinity Services Group asked Bergen County during the summer 2026 bidding process (`Addenda 2`, July 31, 2026) for copies of Aramark’s recent meal invoices and actual staff dining counts, the county replied: “Can be requested via OPRA.” Yet when those records were requested under OPRA from the Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 9, Capt. Paul Allegretta—one of the only three officials who scored the $15 million food contract RFP—initially sent 71 pages of third-party kitchen repair bills instead of 2022–2025 meal invoices on Oct. 14, and on Oct. 19 demanded an estimated $54,000.00 (“approximately five hundred hours” of officer overtime) to retrieve hard-copy shift meal-count forms.

On Tuesday, Oct. 20, at 9:14 a.m. EDT, formal written notice was emailed to Capt. Allegretta and Sheriff’s Office Counsel Daniel Zwillenberg declining the unitemized $54,000 charge under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(c), demanding the unproduced 2022–2026 weekly Aramark meal invoices as immediate-access bills and vouchers under N.J.S.A. 47:1A-5(e), and narrowing the shift-form request to a single seven-day week—Oct. 28 through Nov. 3, 2021 (21 forms)—to test the 3,024-meal conflict between Invoices `000855` and `000865`. For six days, the Sheriff’s Office did not reply.

Then, on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at approximately 9:40 a.m. EDT, Bergen TV published its morning report on the $15 million jail food contract and $54,000 OPRA fee demand and tagged `@BergenCountySo`, `@BergenCoSheriff`, `@bergencountynj`, `@BergenExec`, and `@BergenDems` on X. Within 64 minutes, Capt. Allegretta emailed a Microsoft OneDrive link (`10:44:05 a.m. EDT`) followed by two messages copying Counsel Zwillenberg:

• At 10:44:17 a.m. EDT: “Mr. Reynoso, please note that the requested invoices (2021-2026) and meal count sheets (10/28/21 – 11/3/21) have been shared with you via OneDrive due to the file size(s) of the attachments. Thank you. Captain Paul Allegretta, Bergen County Sheriff’s Office”
• At 11:10:00 a.m. EDT (attaching `10-28-2021-11-03-2021 Meal Count Sheets.pdf`, 21 pages): “Please see the meal count sheets, I do not believe these documents were included in the OneDrive file. I believe that this includes all of the documents we possess in accordance with your request. Thank you. Captain Paul Allegretta”

Internal document metadata (`pdfinfo` and ZIP archive modification timestamps) inside the 11 PDF files reveals the exact sequence behind the scenes:

• `10-28-2021-11-03-2021 Meal Count Sheets.pdf` (21 pages): Created Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, at 9:15:37 a.m. EDT (`Author: CMAMO`, Producer: `Sharp MX-M5071`). The 21 shift forms were scanned one minute after the narrowed Oct. 20 email arrived—and then sat unreleased for six days until Bergen TV’s story went live.
• `2025 Invoices – 2 – Meals.pdf` (70 pages) and `2025 Invoices – 1 – Meals.pdf` (49 pages): Archive timestamps show both files were compiled on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, at 10:39:14 a.m. and 10:58:24 a.m. EDT, and likewise held for six days.
• `2022 Invoices 1 – Meals.pdf` (79 pages): Created Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at 10:20:05 a.m. EDT—40 minutes after Bergen TV’s morning report went live.
• `2022 Invoices 2 – Meals.pdf` (111 pages): Created Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at 10:23:00 a.m. EDT.
• `2022 Invoices 3 – Meals.pdf` (91 pages): Created Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at 10:25:14 a.m. EDT.
• `2023 Invoices – Meals.pdf` (207 pages): Created Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at 10:30:57 a.m. EDT.
• `2024 Invoices – Meals.pdf` (162 pages): Created Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at 10:35:32 a.m. EDT.
• `2026 Invoices – Meals.pdf` (185 pages): Created Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, at 10:37:50 a.m. EDT—six minutes before Capt. Allegretta shared the OneDrive folder at 10:44:05 a.m. EDT.

Finding #1: How Bergen County overpaid Aramark $188,016.55 across 20 liquidated purchase orders in 2022

The 281 pages of 2022 records (`2022 Invoices 1`, `2`, and `3`) explain a question that had gone unanswered in county budget documents: why Bergen County’s food payments to Aramark spiked to $2,198,322.56 in 2022 before falling in 2023, 2024, and 2025.

Under the 2021–2026 contract (`Contract No. 2100360`, awarded by Resolution 859-21 on Oct. 6, 2021, and summarized in Resolution 1498-24), Aramark’s sliding-scale price per inmate meal was tied to a 775-inmate occupancy threshold (16,275 inmate meals per seven-day week at three meals a day):

• When jail occupancy was below 775 inmates (<16,275 meals/week): $1.8350 ($1.84) per inmate meal.
• When jail occupancy exceeded 775 inmates (>16,275 meals/week): $1.3500 per inmate meal.

In late January 2022 (`Inv 000898`, Jan. 27–Feb. 2, 2022), the jail served 14,954 inmate meals (~712 inmates a day) and was properly billed at $1.8350 ($27,440.59). The following week (`Inv 000901`, Feb. 3–9, 2022), after detainee transfers from neighboring counties pushed the jail’s population above 775 inmates to 17,581 meals (~837 inmates a day), Aramark properly lowered the rate to $1.3500 per meal ($23,734.35). Aramark continued billing the correct $1.3500 rate on `Inv 000903` (17,565 meals), `Inv 000906` (17,815 meals), `Inv 000909` (18,244 meals), and `Inv 000912` (11,394 meals for the four-day split period March 3–6, 2022, ~950 inmates a day).

However, on the three-day split invoice `Inv 000913` (March 7–9, 2022, 8,554 meals, ~950 inmates a day), Aramark’s billing system treated the three-day subtotal as if the weekly census were below 775 inmates and reverted to $1.8350 per meal. Then, starting on full-week Invoice `200332100-000916` (March 10–16, 2022, 19,945 inmate meals, or ~950 inmates a day), Aramark kept billing the $1.8350 below-775 rate week after week—even though the jail held between 879 and 985 inmates a day (18,459 to 20,677 meals a week)!

Even more remarkably, Bergen County officials approved, certified funds for, and paid (“PO LIQUIDATED“) 20 weekly purchase orders between March 10 and Aug. 24, 2022, at the erroneous $1.8350 rate (curiously, every one of those county purchase orders bears the department header `”SHERIFF – EYECARE VOUCHERS”` above the `”Jail – Food RFP # 21-006″` line items):

(Note: If the three-day split invoice `000913` for March 7–9, 2022—where 8,554 meals at ~950 inmates a day were also billed and liquidated on `PO 228945` at $1.8350 for $15,696.59 instead of $1.3500 for $11,547.90—is included, the 2022 rate overpayment reaches $192,165.24.)

What makes the 20 overpaid purchase orders indisputable is what appears on four July/August invoices (`Inv 000975`, `000976`, `000980`, and `000982` covering July 7 through Aug. 3, 2022, in `2022 Invoices 2`, pages 79–90) and on `Inv 001000` (covering Aug. 25–31, 2022, pages 109–110): on those invoices, Aramark printed `@ 1.8350`, and a county reviewer crossed out `1.8350` by hand in black ink, wrote `1.35` above it, crossed out the $35,745.80–$38,575.37 inmate meal charge, and wrote the recalculated $1.3500 total in the margin (for example, reducing `Inv 001000` from $43,447.37 to $33,251.70 on `PO 245893`, saving $10,195.67 on that single week). Yet on the three August weeks immediately preceding `Inv 001000` (`PO 241802`, `PO 241803`, and `PO 241804`, signed Sept. 8, 2022) and the 17 consecutive weeks from March 10 through July 6, 2022, no correction was made, and the county paid the full $1.8350 rate.

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Finding #2: 21 signed Chow Cart sheets prove 3,024 “phantom” meals on retroactive Invoice `000865`

The 21-page PDF emailed by Capt. Allegretta at 11:10 a.m. EDT Monday (`10-28-2021-11-03-2021 Meal Count Sheets.pdf`) contains the daily `”BERGEN COUNTY JAIL – CHOW CART/MEAL ACCOUNTING FORM”` sheets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner from Thursday, Oct. 28, through Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021. Each form lists the exact tray count delivered to every housing unit (`C1` through `A5`) and bears three signatures: the Kitchen Security Officer (such as Officer N. Mamo `#1805`), the Aramark Supervisor, and the Sector Supervisor.

Adding the 21 signed forms day by day confirms that the jail’s actual physical meal count for that week was 7,744 housing-unit trays (an average of 368.8 inmates per meal) plus 16 callbacks and intake sacks recorded on Aramark’s weekly summary sheet (`2021 Invoices 2`, ), for a grand total of 7,760 inmate meals:

• Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021: Breakfast `377` () + Lunch `365` () + Dinner `375` () = 1,117 inmate meals.
• Friday, Oct. 29, 2021: Breakfast `370` () + Lunch `364` () + Dinner `371` census ( / summary) + `1` callback = 1,106 inmate meals.
• Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021: Breakfast `371` () + Lunch `364` () + Dinner `361` () + `2` callbacks + `4` sacks = 1,102 inmate meals.
• Sunday, Oct. 31, 2021: Breakfast `371` () + Lunch `367` census ( lists `372`) + Dinner `367` census ( lists `373`) + `7` callbacks + `3` sacks = 1,115 inmate meals.
• Monday, Nov. 1, 2021: Breakfast `373` () + Lunch `369` () + Dinner `370` () = 1,112 inmate meals.
• Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2021: Breakfast `371` () + Lunch `370` () + Dinner `371` () = 1,112 inmate meals.
• Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021: Breakfast `371` () + Lunch `358` () + Dinner `368` () = 1,097 inmate meals.

That 7,760-meal total matches regular Invoice `200332100-000855` (`2021 Invoices 2`, ), which billed Bergen County for 7,760 inmate meals at $1.7280 ($13,409.28). Yet two weeks later, on Nov. 17, 2021, when Aramark issued retroactive “price difference” Invoice `200332100-000865` (, paid on County Purchase Order `220567`) to collect the +$0.107 per-meal rate increase (`$1.728` to `$1.835`) for the exact same dates (`10/28/21–11/03/21`), Aramark billed the county for 10,784 inmate meals ($1,153.88)—charging Bergen County for 3,024 phantom inmate meals ($323.57) that the Sheriff’s Office’s own signed Chow Cart sheets prove were never served.

Finding #3: Aramark’s internal $0.947 base menu cost, $469,267 in kitchen-floor surcharges, and flat 1,400 weekly staff meals

The newly released 2023 and 2024 invoice volumes also show how Aramark billed Bergen County an extra $469,267.38 during two jail kitchen-floor replacement projects—and reveal Aramark’s own internal calculation of what a Bergen County Jail meal costs to produce:

• Aramark’s internal $0.947 base menu cost (`2023 Invoices – Meals.pdf`, ): Attached behind Purchase Order `259184` and retroactive contingency Invoice `200332100-001039A` (dated Feb. 23, 2023, billing 407,981 inmate meals at +$0.702 = $286,402.66 for Oct. 3, 2022, through Feb. 19, 2023, under Resolution 472-23) is a one-page Aramark table titled “Bergen County — Contingency Menu Cost Analysis.” In that table, Aramark reports its internal “Jail Menu Cost” as $0.947 per meal ($0.804 for breakfast, $1.022 for lunch, and $1.014 for dinner) and its “Contingency Menu” cost as $1.649 per meal—a +$0.702 per-meal (+74.1%) increase itemized as: serving milk seven days a week instead of three (+$0.238/meal), juice cartons at lunch and dinner instead of bulk beverage coolers (+$0.142/meal), individually wrapped muffins instead of bulk sheet cake (+$0.101/meal), fresh fruit at lunch instead of baked dessert (+$0.093/meal), individual cereal bowls instead of bulk cereal (+$0.073/meal), and portion-control peanut butter and jelly packets instead of bulk containers (+$0.055/meal).
• Second kitchen-floor surcharge jumped 50.7% to +$1.058 per meal (`2024 Invoices – Meals.pdf`, pages 96–131): When the jail replaced additional kitchen flooring between Aug. 22 and Oct. 20, 2024 (Resolution 1498-24, $182,864.72), Aramark did not charge the +$0.702 contingency surcharge used in 2022–2023. Instead, Aramark charged a +$1.0580 per-meal surcharge on top of the $1.3500 base rate—bringing the combined charge to $2.4080 per inmate meal (`Inv 001283` and `001285`, followed by split “Amendment Pricing / Price adjustment for kitchen reno” Invoices `001288`, `001297`, `001300`, `001301`, `001303`, `001304`, and `001306`).
• Every regular week from Sept. 2022 through Sept. 30, 2026 billed $1.35 per inmate meal and a flat 1,400 staff meals ($4,872/week): Across all 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 regular weekly jail invoices through `Inv 200332100-001519` (Sept. 24–30, 2026, `2026 Invoices – Meals.pdf`, ), the jail’s inmate census remained above the 775-inmate threshold every single week (~885 to 940 inmates a day, or 18,600 to 19,800 meals a week), billed at $1.3500 per inmate meal (~$25,100 to $26,800 a week). Every single regular weekly invoice also billed an identical flat quota of 1,400 officer/staff meals at $3.4800 = $4,872.00 a week ($253,344 a year), regardless of how many officers ate in the staff dining room. Combined with county shelter meals ($1.8350 per meal, rising from ~315 meals/week in 2022 to ~980–1,120 meals/week in 2026), a typical 2025–2026 week totaled roughly $31,800 to $32,500 (~$1.65 million to $1.69 million a year)—confirming that the Board of Commissioners’ new $3,000,000-a-year ($15,000,000 five-year) contract cap embeds more than $1 million a year in excess spending headroom.
• Missing weekly Meal Count Summary sheets after 2022: Notably, while the 2021 invoice PDFs attached all 53 weekly `”Bergen County Meal Count Summary”` spreadsheets behind the invoices, the 2022–2026 PDFs omit almost all weekly jail meal-count summary sheets (including only four jail summary sheets in early 2022 and zero in 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026), and the two 2025 PDFs (`49` and `70` pages) omit roughly 21 weeks of 2025 billing packets.

Related Bergen TV investigations: Bergen County, N.J., sets $15M jail food cap; Sheriff asks $54K fee · Bergen County, N.J., donors gave $571K, won $25.8M in 2026 contracts · Ridgewood, N.J., eyes $6.98M, 20-year water tank deal with 1 bidder

Bergen TV asks: Should Bergen County audit Aramark’s 2021–2026 jail invoices and seek a $188,340 refund for the 20 overbilled 2022 purchase orders and 3,024 phantom meals before signing the new $15 million contract?
Share your take in the comments.

Sources

• Bergen County Sheriff’s Office OPRA release (Oct. 26, 2026, Capt. Paul Allegretta, copying Counsel Daniel Zwillenberg): `2021-2026_Invoices_-_Meals.zip` (10 PDF files totaling 1,273 pages: `2021 Invoices 1 – Meals.pdf`, `2021 Invoices 2 – Meals.pdf`, `2022 Invoices 1 – Meals.pdf`, `2022 Invoices 2 – Meals.pdf`, `2022 Invoices 3 – Meals.pdf`, `2023 Invoices – Meals.pdf`, `2024 Invoices – Meals.pdf`, `2025 Invoices – 1 – Meals.pdf`, `2025 Invoices – 2 – Meals.pdf`, and `2026 Invoices – Meals.pdf`) and `10-28-2021-11-03-2021 Meal Count Sheets.pdf` (21 pages of signed Bergen County Jail Chow Cart/Meal Accounting Forms).
• Bergen County OPRA Request B021799-100826 releases (Oct. 9, Oct. 15, and Oct. 19, 2026): Resolutions 1311-26, 859-21, 472-23, and 1498-24; Executed Contract No. 2100360; BC-RFP-26-003 specifications, Addenda 1–2, Bid Table BT-05EP, and Evaluation Scorecards; 2021–2026 County `VENHIST` and FAS vendor payment ledgers.