Former jails big still owes city

DESPITE the mayor’s assertions, ex-jails boss Joseph Ponte did not fully reimburse the city for the many miles he drove to Maine.

“Everything that needs to be paid back must be paid back. I’m a little confused at how the Department of Correction came up with their final figures myself,” Mayor de Blasio said Monday. “But the silver lining here is the Conflicts of Interest Board can now make sense of the final outcome because they have not yet ruled on what final restitution should be.”

The mayor insisted in May that the city would be made whole after the Department of Investigation revealed Ponte had clocked thousands and thousands of miles on his city car to take jaunts to his home state. While his underlings at the Correction Department did pay per mile, Ponte didn’t — instead paying just $1,043.44 for gas and $745.56 for tolls, as first reported by The New York Times.

The mayor did not elaborate on why Ponte, who stepped down from his post in the weeks after the scandal was revealed, had not been held to the same standard as other staffers who had used their cars improperly.