Aug 7
2025
City contractor violates law, is awarded new work anyway
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Over the span of two days in July, the City of Buffalo issued a fine to its primary street paving contractor for violating local law, then awarded the firm three new contracts worth millions.
On July 7, according to a letter written by former Department of Public Works Commissioner Nathan Marton, the city issued D&H Paving a $22,214 fine for failing to hire and pay apprentices appropriately on a 2022 paving contract.
The following day, July 8, the Common Council voted unanimously on a slate of three paving contracts, all awarded to D&H Paving because the firm was the lowest bidder. The contracts will cover next year’s paving work and are collectively valued at $11.6 million.
The back-to-back actions involving D&H have raised questions and ruffled feathers in City Hall.
The local labor advocate who brought the apprenticeship issue to lawmakers’ attention said the fine is far less than it ought to be.
Meanwhile, Common Council members told Investigative Post that while they were bothered by D&H’s conduct, they felt they had to award the contracts to the firm because it was the lowest bidder. They said they are urging other contractors to bid on the next round of street paving work.
Then there’s the fact that the owner of D&H Paving, Michael Vaccaro, was one of Acting Mayor Chris Scanlon’s top supporters during his failed bid for a full term, donating a total of $17,500. Neither Vaccaro nor spokespeople for Scanlon — including Deputy Mayor Brian Gould — returned phone calls seeking comment for this story.
“I don’t like it when contractors who are doing business with the city are also donating to political campaigns,” said Niagara District representative David Rivera, who was among the lawmakers raising concerns about D&H Paving last year. “I don’t think it should be done.”
“It’s not that I feel good about it,” he added about his vote for the contracts. “I would like for any contractor that’s doing business with the City of Buffalo to comply with our ordinances, especially with regard to apprentices. And if you’re not in compliance that should be held against them next time around as well.”
Donate to support our nonprofit newsroomThe $22,000 fine issued by the city to D&H Paving is the third time the contractor has been fined for hiring and paying apprentice workers inappropriately. In 2021 and 2022, the state Department of Labor twice fined the company over apprenticeship issues. The 2021 fine totaled $2,000 and stemmed from work tied to a 2019 contract.
The 2022 fine was far higher — nearly $28,000 — and carried with it a stipulation the violation was “willful.” The firm’s second offense stemmed from contracts issued in 2021 and 2022. More than $22,000 of the penalty accounted for back wages owed to D&H’s workers. A subsequent labor department audit of D&H Paving returned an additional $41,000 in back pay to workers.
The Common Council’s fine in July stems from similar violations tied to a city contract issued in 2022.
At issue in all three cases is that D&H Paving employed unregistered apprentices. Under state law, contractors may pay apprentices lower wages but only if those apprentices are properly registered so they earn credit for their on-the-job experience. City law carries an extra stipulation that 10 percent of all hours worked on public works contracts must be done by registered apprentices.
Scanlon, then representing the South District, led the charge to add teeth — namely monetary penalties — to that ordinance in 2021.
In all three situations, D&H was found to have paid some workers apprentice wages without them being registered. In the cases the labor department investigated, D&H was found to owe thousands in back pay to the apprentices. In the case that led to the city fine, D&H was found to have only given 7.5 percent of the contract’s work to apprentices instead of the required 10 percent.
Matt Kent, executive director of the New York Foundation for Fair Contracting said D&H actually gave less work than that to apprentices. The 7.5 percent total, he argued, factored in the hours apprentices worked while unregistered, which he said shouldn’t count.
Had the city deducted those hours, the fine against D&H could have been more than $40,000, he said.
He further took issue with how long the city took to issue a fine against D&H Paving. The contract was issued in 2022 and his organization urged the city to investigate in 2023. In response, according to Kent, Marton said the city would wait for the state labor department to issue its findings. It did so last summer. Kent then again urged the city to take action against the contractor, but Marton opted to conduct his own investigation rather than use the results of the state’s probe. That review finally concluded last month.
“It’s striking that we were told to wait for this process to play itself out so that appropriate enforcement could be done. And then again, two years after we first alerted the city, and a year after we were told, ‘We’re going to do it, we just gotta make sure to measure correctly,’ we don’t get that,” Kent said.
Marton, on July 7, told Investigative Post he was “finalizing” the fine against D&H but declined to comment further. He issued the fine — and Vaccaro agreed to pay it — later that day. Marton has since left city government for other employment.
Kent argued that the state’s prior finding that D&H Paving’s violations were “willful” ought to result in a two-pronged punishment from the city: a higher fine and a suspension from bidding on contracts. State law says that if a contractor receives two “willful” violations, it can be barred from all public bidding for a period of time.
The $22,000 fine, he said, “is a slap on the wrist that does not seem to match the underlying facts of their violations.”
Kent’s case for stricter punishment didn’t resonate with Common Council members. Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope said she was satisfied with the fine that was issued and was “cautiously optimistic” the firm wouldn’t violate the rules again.
“Could [the fine] be higher? Probably,” she said. “But if the end result is [that] they have been better actors since then, how long do we continue to punish the business? That is a legitimate question.”
However, she added: “I promise you, if it comes up again we’re going to have to deal with it again.”
Although the Council voted to approve three contracts for D&H Paving last month, both lawmakers and Kent hope the city can find a new paving contractor next year.
“I think that if there’s a history of a contractor not being in compliance, being fined, determinations made … there’s a problem there,” Rivera said. “We should seriously consider not going forward with that contractor and perhaps go with the next lowest bidder.”
Of the three contracts the Council approved last month, D&H was the sole bidder on one worth $4.4 million. On a second, D&H beat out competitor Amherst Paving by $408,000. On a third, D&H beat Amherst by $96,000.
Halton-Pope said she voted in favor of the contracts because she and her Ellicott District constituents didn’t want to see paving work held up longer than it had been. But she urged other firms to bid on the next round of paving contracts.
“If there are other businesses out there that can do the work, the next time something comes up, please, work to be the lowest responsible bidder, or bid on a project,” she said.
