Sergio Bellavia, of Bellavia Remodeling Inc., of Hannibal, is one of the main lead supervisor contractors for Onondaga County and the City of Syracuse. He is shown in front of a house in Nedrow where lead paint was detected and his crew members are putting up siding. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current

Central Current reported this story with funding from the Health Foundation for Western and Central New York.

After close to five years and multiple extensions, the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County appear to be on the verge of spending federal money meant to clear lead hazards in almost 400 housing units in the county. 

A lack of contractors with Environmental Protection Agency certifications forced the city and county to apply for extensions to do the work. During that time, the city and the county also could not apply for more federal funding, limiting the amount of remediation that could be done on homes. 

The city and county have been working through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants awarded in 2018 and 2019 respectively to operate lead hazard control programs. The program helps property owners replace windows and doors that accumulate lead paint and dust. 

Window sills and doors are sources for exposure to lead for children. The Onondaga County Health Department’s most recent reporting indicates that about one in every 10 children tested show elevated blood lead levels.

Both entities have allocated around $3.2 million each to their lead hazard control programs. The city has approved contractors to work on 194 units. About 144 of them have been inspected and cleared. The county’s goal is to contract out lead remediation work on 210 units by Dec. 27, when the funding expires. So far, the county has cleared and inspected 189 units.

The county is in the process of applying for more HUD money this year and city officials say the city will wait until 2025.

To avoid delays during future rounds of federal funding, city and county officials say they have taken steps to ensure there are enough contractors ready to bid on contracts by recruiting firms through outreach events and also offering training for workers. 

Contractors struggle to get certified

Experienced contractors say they have seen more interest from others in the industry in securing government contracts to work on lead-ridden properties in recent months. 

But they still feel the barriers of entry are too high for contractors, especially because companies need significant funding to attain the requisite certifications from the EPA. These credentials, outlined in the agency’s renovation, repair, or painting project rules, ensure workers know lead-safe construction work practices.

Contractors are also expected to front the costs of materials and wait for reimbursements from the city and county, which presents another obstacle, contractors say.

“It’s kind of scary for somebody who is going to invest the little bit of money they have to start this type of work,” said Sergio Bellavia, the owner of Bellavia Remodeling Inc., the firm that gets most of the jobs to remediate lead in county homes. Bellavia’s company has renovated around 50 units this year alone.

Companies have to pay a licensing fee of around $550 to register the firm. Then, each individual worker needs a renovator license, which includes eight hours of courses and two hours of hands-on training, and teaches contractors lead safety practices. This costs about $300 per certified worker.

Additionally, every job has to be supervised by a contractor with a license to perform lead abatement work, which starts at $550. 

Bellavia said small companies with five or six workers certified could pay $2,500 to $3,000 in certifications alone. Often these companies have very small operating budgets, he noted. 

Bellavia is the contractor who has been working on lead hazard control projects the longest in the county. He got his RRP renovator certification in 2000 and his firm has been working on lead remediation jobs for 16 years with private clients and municipalities.

Bellavia noted that while the county has made strides in getting more contractors in the door by offering to pay for certification courses, not everyone knows of these efforts.

“I don’t know any guys who want to get the licenses or even their own firms’ licenses,” Bellavia said. 

Beyond licensing, Bellavia estimated companies would also have to factor in the following costs:

  • A firm of that size would be paying somewhere around $2,700 in workers insurance every month, Bellavia said. 
  • He said that companies pay contractors around $21 per hour to start. In a three-bedroom home that needs window replacements, Bellavia said that can take up to two days worth of work. 
  • Typically, a home of that size would require around 18 windows to be replaced, Bellavia said. That can cost $250-$400 per window.

Small companies’ budgets are especially tested by the lead hazard control program’s guidelines, which require the contractors to front the costs of materials and wait for a reimbursement from the county. Justin Sayles, a county spokesperson, said the county makes payments to contractors on a relatively short timeline.

“If an invoice is received by Tuesday, the contractor gets paid on Friday,” Sayles said.

In the city, contractors might wait up to 30 days to be reimbursed, said Brooke Schneider, a city spokesperson.

Other contractors are certified and could feasibly front the money for some county jobs, but are tied up working several jobs in the private market, they say. 

Sal Bellavia, Sergio’s brother and the owner of Onondaga Builders Inc., has done lead control work for the county in the past, but has not taken on a job since 2020. He said he currently has his hands full with home renovation jobs for clients in the private sector.

“I just don’t want to overextend myself,” he said, adding that he is considering going to work on lead hazard control projects for the county once he catches up on some of the other projects he has on his plate. 

Bellavia’s reasoning for not bidding on government contracts is familiar to county officials.

Sayles said contractors stopped bidding on contracts since a pandemic-era halt on non-essential construction lifted in mid 2020. 

“Contractors have had more work than they could handle,” he said. “There are more people with I money looking to do improvements to their homes.”

County more than double available contractors

The county’s efforts to recruit more contractors have been successful. At the beginning of the year, the county only had seven firms bidding on contracts, and most of those went to Sergio Bellavia. He noted he typically wins three out of every 10 bids he places. 

After the county has pumped resources into meeting contractors where they are, 16 firms bid on jobs. 

Through trainings offered and recruiting events, the county has been able to bring in 274 new prospective workers into the fold, Sayles said. 

Almost 200 of them have gotten an RRP renovator certification through monthly courses offered by the county. Twenty two of them have been Syracuse City School District students through a technical education partnership between SCSD and the county. The rest have been more advanced lead abatement certifications for workers and supervisors, which require years of construction experience. The courses for the abatement certifications are offered quarterly.

Oceanna Fair, an advocate working to prevent childhood lead poisoning in the county, said the city and county could help contractors cover the costs of remediation projects on the front end, paying them up front when they accept the bid.

“At the end of the day these homes need to be fixed so we can house families and property owners who are landlords are going to continue to need help operating their business,” she said. “The city and county need to get in the middle of this and figure out how to fix it.”

How more funding can help

Fair, a member of Families for Lead Freedom Now, said that going forward, yearly funding to the program could be a significant asset to the county’s investments to combat childhood lead poisoning. The Onondaga County Health Department’s most recent reporting indicates that about one in every 10 children tested show elevated blood lead levels.

More funding could help address the more than 1,400 open property code violations related to lead paint and dust spread across hundreds of properties in the city of Syracuse, Fair said. 

So far, the lead hazard control programs have only been able to address a fraction of those needs.

Fair said that one potential solution to the large backlog of properties could be to proactively enforce laws like the rental registry and certificate of compliance in the city, both of which are only issued to property owners for maintaining structures with no code violations. 

Proactive inspections, she said, would help code enforcement agencies keep track of homes with violations based on lead hazards, and in turn speculative accounting of the costs of remediation.

For Fair, who participated in the county’s lead hazard control program in 2022 and had windows, doors, and the entire siding of her house replaced due to lead paint, the obstacles contractors face continue to show a lack of proper investment to address the crisis.

“When Onondaga County tells us that they are investing all this money on lead, I know they are just investing a drop in the bucket,” she said.

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Eddie Velazquez is a Syracuse journalist covering economic justice in the region. He is focused on stories about organized labor, and New York's housing and childhood lead poisoning crises. You can follow...