They’re en-titled

Transit chief gives 6 fancy promotions, no $

IN THE mad scramble to fix the MTA’s broken subway system, the top transit genius who oversees the other geniuses setting train schedules had a plan to save the day — give fancy-sounding promotions and dangle the possibility of raises.

The chief of operations planning at NYC Transit recently told his underlings that six workers would temporarily get new job titles as they tackle the subway’s state of emergency and the summer of hell at Penn Station.

“As the needs of NYCT evolve, so must the Division of Operations Planning,” the chief, Peter Cafiero (photo), wrote in an Aug. 16 memo to staff and to MTA bigwigs.

“This is particularly true at present as we support Chairman (Joe) Lhota, Managing Director (Veronique) Hakim and Acting President (Darryl) Irick in a full review of subway operations and the implementation of the Subway Action Plan.

“We have also been playing key roles supporting the Amtrak/LIRR Penn Station service, the upcoming Canarsie L shutdown, the ‘genius’ competition and other efforts.”

The six workers — mostly desk jockeys who crunch data and sort out service logistics — would keep their current responsibilities and assume a whole lot of other work.

The reward? Well, aside from the extra hours on the job, the employees were given a sliver of hope that they might get raises.

Cafiero wrote in the memo that the new positions would undergo the MTA’s compensation review process — if they ever become permanent.

But the employees shouldn’t get their hopes up.

When the Daily News inquired about the memo — which a source provided — the MTA said no one’s getting paid a penny more.

“Some temporary reassignments at New York City Transit mean several managers will be taking on a lot more responsibility and working longer hours for no extra pay in order to support Chairman Lhota’s emergency plan to fix the subway system,” MTA spokesman Shams Tarek said.

The agency also said Cafiero’s memo had no reason to mention that the jobs would undergo the compensation review process — because they’re not permanent positions. Even if they were permanent, no one would get a pay bump, the MTA insisted.

The agency has been under heavy fire from the public and elected officials who have grown fed up with continuous delays and service disruptions on the subway system. It also was dealing with Amtrak’s emergency track replacements at Penn Station this summer that upended LIRR commutes.

In June, Gov. Cuomo picked Lhota to be the MTA’s chairman in an effort to salvage the flailing agency. Late last month, he outlined an $800 million emergency repair plan to tackle malfunctioning signals, accelerate track repair and expand passenger capacity in cars.

Lhota’s plan didn’t mention temporary job titles or promotions.

Cafiero — who described the promotions in his memo as a way “to increase coordination and streamline decision-making” — did not return a request for comment.

Five of the promoted workers are currently senior directors. Starting Sept. 5, they will become acting deputy chiefs and oversee planning and schedules for bus service, rail service and customer service.

The sixth, Lisa Schreibman, is being promoted from director of strategic planning and benchmarking to acting chief of staff and strategic planning for operations planning.