{"id":50014,"date":"2025-09-16T17:18:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T17:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/2025\/09\/16\/paterson-school-board-pays-out-2-5m-to-settle-legal-battle-with-arrow-security\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T17:18:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T17:18:20","slug":"paterson-school-board-pays-out-2-5m-to-settle-legal-battle-with-arrow-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/2025\/09\/16\/paterson-school-board-pays-out-2-5m-to-settle-legal-battle-with-arrow-security\/","title":{"rendered":"Paterson school board pays out $2.5M to settle legal battle with Arrow Security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article Originally Published Here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

PATERSON, NJ\u2014 City education officials are paying almost $3 million to settle two lawsuits involving Arrow Security and Pritchard Industries that previously provided security and custodian services for district schools.<\/p>\n

The largest payout, $2.5 million, will go to\u00a0Arrow<\/a> Security<\/a>\u00a0which provided\u00a0security guard services<\/a>\u00a0during the 2022-23 academic year.\u00a0Pritchard Industries<\/a>\u00a0will get $479,609 in a legal dispute over custodian contract payments involving the period when schools were closed during the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n

The Paterson Board of Education voted in favor of both settlements during its Aug. 6 meeting. None of the board members made any comments about the payouts.<\/p>\n

Arrow filed a lawsuit against the district in May 2024 accusing Paterson school officials of violating their $9.1 million contract, which the company said called for it to provide 177 full-time security guards, 13 supervisors, a dispatcher and manager.<\/p>\n

Arrow said Paterson imposed \u201cburdensome and impractical\u201d requirements on the security guards the firm provided, including that they take random drug tests conducted by an independent laboratory, rather than allowing them to submit to the company\u2019s in-house screening.A Jersey joke?\u00a0Paterson now has 3 councilmen facing separate criminal charges<\/a><\/p>\n

Rejected 37 school guards who tested positive for marijuana<\/h3>\n

Arrow said Paterson schools rejected 37 school guards who tested positive for marijuana. The company\u2019s lawsuit also said the district would allow Arrow to assign only guards over the age of 25 to work at city high schools, and the firm said that created problems in finding people to work in $15-per-hour jobs.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit also said there were flaws in the school district\u2019s billing system.<\/p>\n

Overall, Arrow claimed it submitted about $5.43 million in invoices to the district and received payment for only $1.85 million.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s response to company\u2019s complaint said Arrow fell short in meeting its obligations under the contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost immediately, it was clear that Arrow was in over its head, and made promises it could not keep,\u201d said lawyers for the school district. \u201cArrow\u2019s procrastination, deceit, inability to keep its word, lack of professionalism, incompetence, poor record keeping, and even poorer business practices became evident within the first few months of the contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

Company submitted invoices for months when schools were shut<\/h3>\n

In the Pritchard case, it was the Paterson school district that filed the litigation against the vendor. Pritchard had provided custodian services to the district for more than six years between 2005 and 2020 before the billing dispute arose.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s lawsuit said the company submitted invoices for $620,000 monthly payments for April, May and June in 2020, when schools were shut down during the pandemic, a period when Pritchard\u2019s employees performed no work in city education facilities.<\/p>\n

The district said it sent Pritchard $1.3 million for those invoices in August 2020. The next month, the district determined that it should not have made the payment and asked for reimbursement, the lawsuit said. But Pritchard refused to pay the money back, the district alleged.<\/p>\n

Pritchard\u2019s response to Paterson\u2019s claims cited a state law adopted during the pandemic requiring districts to make payments on contracts \u201cas if the school facilities remained open.\u201d The company filed its own legal claim against the district seeking additional payment.<\/p>\n

A Superior Court judge ruled against the Paterson district\u2019s lawsuit in 2023, and city education officials filed an appeal.<\/p>\n

The Paterson Board of Education resolution approved this week said the district\u2019s check to Pritchard for $479,609 would be available for pickup on Aug. 7.<\/p>\n

The post Paterson school board pays out $2.5M to settle legal battle with Arrow Security<\/a> appeared first on Security Guard Services Magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\u200b<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article Originally Published Here PATERSON, NJ\u2014 City education officials are paying almost $3 million to settle two lawsuits involving Arrow Security and Pritchard Industries that previously provided security and custodian services for district schools. The largest payout, $2.5 million, will go to\u00a0Arrow Security\u00a0which provided\u00a0security guard services\u00a0during the 2022-23 academic year.\u00a0Pritchard Industries\u00a0will get $479,609 in a legal dispute over custodian contract payments involving the period when schools were closed during the COVID pandemic. The Paterson Board of Education voted in favor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-security-guard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.excelmedias.com\/Security\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}