Just weeks before Mayor Bloomberg ordered city agencies to come up with $1.5 billion in savings to help balance the battered city budget, the Transportation Department doled out raises and promotions to four dozen top managers – the NY Post reports

First Deputy Commissioner Lori Ardito received a $15,000 pay hike to $180,000.

Bruce Schaller, hired in May 2007 as a deputy commissioner for planning and sustainability, was boosted from $160,000 to $172,800.

Russell Holcomb, the deputy chief engineer for bridge maintenance, was brought up to $143,712 with a $10,645 raise.

Margaret Forgione, the agency’s Manhattan borough commissioner, saw her salary surge from $105,930 to $116,523 as of Sept. 21.

Two days later, Bloomberg instructed all agency heads to produce savings of 2.5 percent this fiscal year and 5 percent the next fiscal year to help plug a hole in the city budget estimated at $4 billion over 18 months.

The mayor later announced that the citywide work force would be trimmed by 3,000 – including 500 to 600 layoffs.

Transportation officials defended their spending decisions.

“A lot of these were not just raises,” said DOT spokesman Seth Solomonow. “These were promotions and expansions of duties. So people are doing more work.”

In Ardito’s case, he said, “She was making less than some of the people reporting to her” and was moved up to the same salary level as her equivalent at the Department of Environmental Protection.

Solomonow said Schaller was the “mastermind” of the city’s green agenda, and deserved the raise for his “amazing and tireless contributions to DOT.”

Holcomb took on extra duties in overseeing bridges after his boss retired and got an extra $10,000 because “he can make a lot more money in the private sector, and we’re making an effort to keep him here,” said Solomonow.

As for Forgione, he said, she received an extra $10,593 to put her on equal footing with others in the same title.

Solomonow also explained that his own $5,000 raise – to $100,000 – was designed to bring him in line with the salary of his predecessor, who made 10 percent more.