Part of the problem of city employees taking advantage of free parking is that many of the permits are actually fake. That’s some clown shit:

The city’s most comprehensive study of curbside parking has found that 9 percent of all vehicle permits in lower Manhattan are phony, The Post has learned.

The yearlong study confirmed what regular motorists have been screaming about for years — that privileged parkers are creating havoc downtown.

Among the study’s other findings:

• Nearly one in eight vehicles with permits were parked illegally at a bus stop, crosswalk, fire hydrant, driveway or were double parked.
• Forty-two percent of vehicles with “official business” permits parked outside their designated spaces for more than three hours, a violation of their permits.
• On a typical day between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., more than 3,300 vehicles displayed a law-enforcement placard.
• Each parked an average of 41/4 hours, meaning they accounted for almost a quarter of all the “vehicle hours” available.
• Eighteen percent of meters weren’t available to the general public because privileged parkers hogged them.