Did you hear the one about the chain-link fence company submitting bogus work claims? That’s the focus of Pete Donohue’s column today, and the story is an odd one. Apparently, the MTA contracted with Long Island-based the American Chain Link & Construction company in the “early 2000s” to provide fencing around various transit properties. The company submitted invoice “devoid of any backup documentation to explain what expenses the company had incurred for such things as materials, equipment rentals and labor, according to the inspector general’s office” and got paid anyway.

At some point, the MTA Inspector General got wind of the fraud and began investigating. Only 14 of 100 invoices had enough detail to allow the IG to examine the work, and all but one of those were deemed fraudulent. Suffolk County authorities claim the lack of documentation meant they could pinpoint only $31,000 in fraudulent charges while the case settled for a guilty plea and the forfeiture of $60,000 the MTA still owes American. Donohue even mentions that “bus managers in the same transit agency, meanwhile, routinely challenged American’s bills and paid less than what the company initially sought.” What a strange story.

An MTA Bus manager is facing disciplinary charges for steering nearing $2 million worth of bus supplies contracts to businesses owned by his family, The New York Post reported this weekend. Dean Carbonaro, a bus manager who The Post says chews on cigars and watches “Jerry Springer” while at work at a Bronx bus depot, has approved parts contracts for well above market value so that his family could benefit, an investigation revealed. “Obviously, this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated. Employees can’t seek to benefit family or friends from any of their work activities,” Barry Kluger, inspector general, said.

According to those who work at Carbonaro’s Zarega Maintenance Facility, the boss would instruct his workers to replace bus panels even if the vehicles were in working order. “Shop foremen would say they didn’t need the panels, but Carbonaro told them to put them on. They couldn’t believe it,” one mechanic said to The Post. For its part, the MTA simply said Carbonaro has been “served with disciplinary charges.” I wonder what he would have to do to lose his job.

Today’s injured passenger lawsuit is brought to you by the letter G. Meet Jonathan Lynn. Last August, he attempted to board a G train at Classon Ave. only to find that the doors were shutting. He made that mad dash down the platform, stuck his arm into an open door and found himself being dragged by the train. After suffering a series of horrific injuries, including multiple arm fractures, he is suing the MTA and the train’s operators.

In the Daily News article, Lynn at first claims the train’s operator waved him along, but he later seems to contradict that statement. “I didn’t think it was real. [I thought] the door’s going to open, he’s going to stop, he’s going to hear me,” Lynn said. “I bounced off one of the pillars, hit my head and that’s the extent of my memory.”

If it sounds fishy to you, it certainly does to me. I’m guessing Lynn tried to board a train right as it was closing, the conductor failed to see him in time and the driver started the train. As a poll attached to The Daily News article shows, already people are overreacting to an injury that is likely partially the fault of the victim as well. People will rabble for more safety precautions; politicians will wring their hands; and the case will settle. The lesson here: Just wait for the next train. It’s never that far away.

When Mayor Bloomberg two weeks ago announced that there aren’t very many panhandlers left in the subway, he drew the ire of, well, most straphangers and homeless advocates across New York. Panhandling, as anyone who rides the subway knows, is alive and well underground. Beggars, musicians, kids selling candy: you name it, and it’s there. Yesterday, though, MTA head Jay Walder tried to clarify Bloomberg’s comments, and his point is a valid one.

While speaking with reporters after yesterday’s MTA Board, Walder addressed panhandling. He noted that “panhandlers are certainly something that you do see in the system” but allowed for a decrease in numbers lately. “When you compare the situations that you see in the subway today with the situations that some of us will remember from a number of years ago, I think the conditions in the subway today are very, very different,” he said. “I think the N.Y.P.D. has done an excellent job at being able to control and try to deal with this. I would not say that it has been eliminated; I think that is certainly not the case. But I don’t think equally that you can compare what we see today to what you might have seen 30 years ago on the subway.”

It’s tough to deny that panhandling and the presence of homeless people in the subway is has decreased lately, but it’s certainly a problem. Homeless people living in stations create unsafe conditions, and panhandlers of varying degree are a near-daily sight in the subway. As the system is open, cheap and warm, those without reliable shelters will continue to seek safety and change underground. Until the city provides better options, panhandling will be a fact of life underground no matter what the mayor says.

Time Warner problems struck just as I was settling in to write this evening’s post. Barring a miraculous resurrection of my Internet within the next hour, I won’t have new content up until the morning. In the meantime, Gawker has a video of a racist naked guy on the 6 train. Only in New York, folks. Only in New York.

When news surfaced yesterday that MTA crews had loaded up a passenger train with garbage bags, I figured heads would roll, and already, the authority is doling out the discipline. According to the Daily News, the worker responsible for supervising the work gang that collects trash from the tracks at 59th St. on the East Side will be disciplined. “We can’t state strongly enough that refuse is absolutely not to be stored or transported on passenger trains,” the agency said in a statement.

Per the News, the MTA determined that workers had collected the refuse from the tracks near the 59th St. station. Instead of carrying it above ground as they should have, the supervisor ordered trash loaded onto the next passenger train in order to take it to 42nd St. where a work train would pick it up. “This was not done with the knowledge or acquiescence of any senior manager,” MTA spokesman Charles Seaton said. “This is a complete no-no.”

Labor officials, meanwhile, hinted that this practice may be more widespread than anyone would prefer. “I have seen supervisors order cleaners to place garbage bags on passenger trains for transportation to a storage facility,” Marvin Holland, a TWU Local 100 member, said. “It’s a health and safety issue for passengers, and our members will not do it unless specifically ordered by supervision.”

It’s become abundantly clear over the past few months that the MTA has a garbage problem. As budget cuts have led to fewer station cleaners, trash piles up in the subway, and along with the refuse come rats. Operationally, workers remove trash via the garbage train, but even this morning at 10 a.m., I saw MTA employees dragging bags of trash through the 7th Ave. station along the Brighton Line in Brooklyn. The leaking bags smelled terrible, and it was just a flat-out mess.

I found it fitting then when I spotted this story in the Daily News. According to a transit worker, some MTA crews have been using passenger trains to move garbage through the system. This action is, of course, against the rules, and no one is happy about it. Passengers are disgusted when trash bags start leaking, and the MTA spoke out against this practice. “It is not our practice to use in-service trains for trash removal,” the authority said.

So what’s going on here? TWU President John Samuelsen has an idea. Despite MTA denials, he claims workers are being instructed by supervisors to do so. “To bring those bags on passenger trains and expose riders to potential of rats jumping out of the bags is outrageous,” he said to the News. “When track workers walk past those bags, we give them a wide berth, knowing if you walk close to a bag, a rat could jump out right on top of you.” Heads should roll.