Jun 6
2025
Concerning contributions to Scanlon campaign
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Under city law, one of Buffalo’s largest paving contractors could have been fined and barred from bidding on lucrative contracts because of its admission to wage theft.
Instead, the Common Council, despite reservations and headed by then-President Chris Scanlon, awarded D&H Paving $6.9 million in work last July.
At the time, the lawmakers expressed concern that D&H Paving was under investigation by the state Department of Labor. That probe, the state’s second into D&H, resulted in a nearly $28,000 fine and a finding that the company’s violations were “willful.” In the midst of the Council’s deliberation, the company’s owner, Michael Vaccaro, donated $500 to Scanlon’s campaign committee via another of his companies.
Scanlon, despite joining his colleagues in criticising the firm, voted in favor of awarding the contracts to D&H Paving.
Six months later, Vaccaro met with Acting Mayor Scanlon and, by his account, offered an explanation for his past legal issues. That same day, January 7, Vaccaro cut a $1,000 check to Scanlon’s campaign.
The cash continued to flow in the months after. In all, Vaccaro and his companies have given Scanlon $17,500, making him the acting mayor’s third-largest donor. Only the Paladino and Zemsky families have given more.
In the meantime, D&H Paving has submitted bids for three more city paving contracts, valued at $11.4 million. The company is the lowest bidder on all three. The Common Council, which has the ultimate say, has not yet deliberated on the bids.
Vaccaro, along with Scanlon’s deputy, deny any impropriety.
“There’s no there there,” Deputy Mayor Brian Gould told Investigative Post.
In responding to Investigative Post’s inquiries, Gould said Scanlon plans to order the city to fine D&H Paving for its past violations.
“That is part of the legislation, a fine can be issued, and as far as the mayor is concerned, that will be the directive,” Gould said. “We just have to determine exactly what that is.”
He said D&H Paving “could be” barred from bidding on future contracts but that Scanlon “respects the work they do.”
Vaccaro said he has donated to Scanlon because of the acting mayor’s support for spending on infrastructure.
“To me, it seems like he has a lot of energy and focus on infrastructure and that’s what my company does,” he said. “I’m all for someone who wants to support infrastructure.”
Holly Nowak, executive director of the Coalition for Economic Justice, said the relationship between Scanlon and Vaccaro “ain’t right, simple as that.”
“Companies that willfully engage in wage theft and workarounds to take money out of the worker’s pockets to line their own, are not the kind of companies I can imagine the people of Buffalo want to see their city partnering with.”
Company’s legal issues
Based in Cheektowaga, D&H Paving has been a city contractor for years and has been paid $31 million for work since 2021, according to city data. The contract approved last July represents half of the city’s paving work.
Beginning in late 2019, the firm landed on the radar of the New York Foundation for Fair Contracting, a nonprofit research organization that bird-dogs contractors doing government jobs. Largely funded by labor unions, the foundation monitors contractors’ compliance with prevailing wage and apprenticeship laws, among other matters, and occasionally files complaints with the state Department of Labor.
In January 2020, Executive Director Matthew Kent wrote to Michael Finn, then the city’s public works commissioner, raising red flags about the way the company utilized apprentices on city work.
Under city law, all large public works projects must employ apprentices to do 10 percent of the work or face penalties, including fines or disqualification from bidding on contracts. Kent, in his letter, alleged apprentices did less than 3 percent of work on D&H’s projects in the summer of 2019. Kent found D&H identified some workers as apprentices who were not registered as such with the state.
The city, Kent said, confirmed his findings but never penalized D&H. At the time, the city’s only recourse was canceling D&H’s contract and banning it from future work.
The following year, in 2021, Scanlon co-sponsored an amendment to the city’s apprenticeship law, adding monetary penalties for contractors that failed to meet the 10 percent threshold for apprentice labor. The fines were pegged to the size of the contract. For example, if a contract worth $1 million missed the mark by 2 percent, the contractor would be fined $5,000.
That same year, Kent submitted a wage theft complaint to the state Department of Labor. He contended employees were due the wage of a journeyman, not an apprentice, if they were not registered as the latter. The labor department ultimately ordered the company to pay $2,000 in back wages, according to state records.
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomThe following year, in 2022, the foundation again found D&H Paving had fallen short of the city’s apprenticeship standard across three paving contracts. The foundation determined apprentices accounted for only 5 to 7 percent of the work performed, less than the required 10 percent. A subsequent probe by the Department of Labor resulted in a $27,712 penalty, the majority of which involved back wages owed to workers.
Following yet more allegations from the foundation, the labor department ordered D&H Paving to audit its books going back two years. That review, Kent said, “returned an additional $40,635 in wage restitution.”
As part of that probe’s conclusion, the labor department required D&H Paving to sign an agreement stating that the company’s violations were “willful.”
In response to questions about the labor department probes, Vaccaro pointed blame at Associated Builders and Contractors Empire State Chapter, a trade group that helps construction companies register apprentices with New York state.
As Vaccaro tells it, he submitted the appropriate paperwork for his apprentices to ABC, which then sent it to the state. There was a discrepancy between when his apprentices started and when they could legally be paid apprentice wages. He blamed ABC for any errors.
“I truthfully did not feel like this should have been held against D&H Paving. I believe it should have been held against ABC,” he said. “But because I was the contractor, in the interest for me to continue performing work, I just wanted to keep moving forward.”
Brian Sampson, president of ABC, said his trade group submitted all of the paperwork to the state in a timely manner.
“At the end of the day, both the participating employers and the apprenticeship sponsor have a responsibility that all the regulations are followed, and in this instance we both did,” he said.
He added that while complying with the state’s regulations for apprenticeship is “complicated,” his firm has not been cited or fined by the labor department over the four years it has operated its program for employers like D&H Paving.
Common Council hesitates
The labor department concluded its review last July, right as D&H Paving was up for consideration for its two current city contracts. The Council delayed a vote on awarding the contract for nearly a month while it awaited the state’s findings.
Niagara District Council Member David Rivera expressed concern that the city would do business with a firm that didn’t follow state or local laws.
“If they have this kind of track record I think that should be taken into consideration,” he said at a July 2 Council meeting. “They should be dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s to make sure that they’re in compliance with our laws.”
A week later, on July 9, Vaccaro made a $500 donation to the campaign fund of then-Council President Scanlon.
On July 19, the labor department confirmed that its probe had concluded and that D&H Paving was liable for the fine and signed a “willful” violation agreement.
At a Council caucus meeting three days later, Scanlon was critical of the firm but ultimately supported awarding D&H $6.9 million in contracts.
“It’s pretty easy to be the lowest bidder when you’re not paying the accurate rate,” he said. But, he added, “They’ve been scrutinized. They’ve admitted to wrongdoing. I don’t want to see the work held up too long. I would imagine they would adhere to the policy this time.”
The contracts were approved in a special session July 30.
Vaccaro meets with Scanlon
Fast-forward to January, by which time Scanlon had ascended to the mayor’s office. According to his calendar, he met with Vaccaro and Delaware District Council Member Joel Feroleto on January 7. Feroleto and Vaccaro, in separate interviews, said Vaccaro explained himself to Scanlon and provided assurances that he had corrected all errors. The biggest change, he and Feroleto said, was that D&H Paving would no longer pay a lower rate to apprentices and will instead pay the full journeyman rate to all employees, regardless of their level of training.
Feroleto described the company’s violations as “honest mistakes.”
“I don’t think they would deliberately pay someone incorrectly at all,” he said.
Later that day, Vaccaro cut a $1,000 check to Scanlon’s campaign fund.
Vaccaro declined to answer a question about why he made that donation.
“I really don’t want to be involved in any kind of a political conversation,” he told Investigative Post.
History of political donations
It’s not unusual for city contractors to donate to incumbent mayors. At least 16 such companies, or their principals, have given at least $75,000 to the Scanlon campaign since last July.
Vaccaro and his companies lead the pack. The next closest is Lawley Services, whose ownership and executives gave Scanlon $9,500. The president of the engineering firm DiDonato Associates contributed $8,000.
“That’s a prerogative of folks that do business with the city,” Gould, the deputy mayor, said. “That’s part of what they view as doing business, I guess.”
Vaccaro, a registered Republican, has donated more than $44,000 to six local and state candidates since 2020, following his father’s death. None approach the amount he’s given to Scanlon, except for Erie County Sheriff John Garacia, to whom he’s donated $15,000. Vaccaro gave $50 to Byron Brown, Scanlon’s predecessor.
On the federal level, Vaccaro donated $936 to the campaign of Donald Trump last year.
Following his January 7 donation to Scanlon, Vaccaro’s checkbook stayed open.
He gave Scanlon $5,000 on April 7, followed by another $1,000 on May 4. Two companies he owns, D&H Paving and Municipal Pipe, then gave Scanlon a total of $10,000 on May 19.
In response to questions about Vaccaro’s giving, Gould, the deputy mayor, suggested a reporter instead investigate the donations made to state Sen. Sean Ryan, Scanlon’s chief rival in the upcoming Democratic primary. He further questioned why Kent, Ryan’s cousin, was raising this issue.
“That seems to be where a lot of this is coming from, and that’s Sean’s cousin,” Gould said. “There are a lot of connecting dots here.”
Kent, in response, said it was “patently ridiculous” to suggest he was raising issues about D&H Paving to benefit Ryan.
“We’ve been calling for the city to enforce the law and hold this cheating contractor accountable for over five years now,” he said. “D&H Paving committing wage theft and repeatedly violating city law is where ‘this is coming from.’ ”
Geoff Kelly contributed to this report.
