RPS suit against tech company scheduled for Oct. trial

(ABC 6 News) – Rochester Public Schools’ lawsuit against a company it sold thousands of iPads to is scheduled for a pretrial hearing Sept. 3, followed by a court trial Oct. 7.

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(ABC 6 News) – The Rochester Public Schools District is suing a company it sold thousands of iPads to. That’s because, four years later, RPS says that company still hasn’t fully paid a shortfall of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The lawsuit was filed last week but it all starts in early 2020. That’s when RPS leaders decided to sell 3,400 iPads they no longer needed. In an effort to get the most ‘bang for their buck,’ in a competitive bid process, the district went with Cornerstone Technologies, LLC.

A deal was reached to sell the iPads for a total of about $371,000. However, RPS says they still have not been fully paid for those devices.

“We had a vendor that we didn’t believe was meeting the terms of that contract fully and so we’re going to do what we ought to do and act in the interest of Rochester taxpayers’ money. And try to make sure that we do right by the school district,” Rochester Superintendent Kent Pekel tells ABC 6.

RPS has issued this additional statement:

“We pursued legal action against Cornerstone Technologies to uphold their end of a contract to ensure we maximize taxpayer dollars. We expect we will prevail on this action and that this action will best protect the district’s rights to collect any future assets that Cornerstone Technologies might have to pay claims against them.”

The district did eventually drop the total amount owed to about $300,000 as long as it was paid by February of this year. The company has paid RPS some of the money but not all. Of course, the deadline has passed which is what led to this lawsuit.

ABC 6 has reached out to Cornerstone Technologies for a statement.