Here’s a shocker: The City Council is actually looking to save money.

That’s right: Under its new speaker, Julie Menin, it’s planning legislation to curb the city’s often-abused emergency-contract system.

Kudos to her for moving this along.

The system, which lets mayors hire firms without competitive bidding and the usual scrutiny during times of crisis, became subject to serious abuse under Mayors Bill de Blasio during COVID and Eric Adams during the migrant crisis, at the cost of millions.

But now the council — infamous for its reckless calls for more spending — is looking to rein in City Hall.

As Menin noted in The Post, both mayors “kept on ‘crisis buying’ for more than a year, without ever comparing prices or rooting out contractor abuse, fraud and waste.”

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De Blasio extended his pandemic-era executive order allowing the city to bypass competitive bidding more than 100 times — entering into almost 1,400 contracts worth nearly $7 billion without the usual scrutiny.

Ex-Comptroller Scott Stringer found the city lost $1.9 million in a failed effort to buy ventilators from Global Medical Supply Group LLC.

During the migrant crisis, the Adams administration awarded a $432 million no-bid contract to DocGo to manage the city’s migrant crisis. 

The company then billed the city for unused hotel rooms and uneaten migrant meals and used unlicensed security guards, authorities charged. 

Adams also awarded a sketchy $54 million no-bid contract to a NJ-based start-up to give migrants prepaid debit cards. 

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Such contracts are Exhibit A in the case for guardrails on City Hall’s use of its emergency powers.

Even where there’s no fraud, a competitive bidding process could turn up better, or cheaper, vendors.

Recall how Gov. Kathy Hochul’s folks awarded a whopping $637 million no-bid contract to a top political donor for COVID test kids, reportedly paying twice as much as what other vendors charged.

Council legislation would limit emergency contracts to 30-days, force subcontractors to provide detailed information and create a public database of city procurements.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office opposed the measures claiming they’d impede emergency Department of Buildings contracts. 

Wrong, they’d just subject them to a small bit of accountability.

Now if only someone could push through similar legislation to curb abuses by governors . . .