Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte is in hot water for frequently taking his city-owned SUV out of town to his coastal Maine getaway — but his New England neighbors say Ponte’s wife, Maria, was often at the wheel.

The wife often drove a dark SUV with tinted windows when the Pontes were in picturesque Wiscasset on weekends, said neighbors.

“You’d see them drive up together on a Friday night,” one local told The Post.

The Pontes sold their mansion overlooking the Sheepscot River in March, records show, and live in Astoria, Queens, full-time.

But prior to that, Ponte made frequent trips to Maine in his city-issued SUV, a misuse of the car, the Department of Investigation said last week.

If his wife was using the city-issued car, that would be “even more of anethical lapse,” noted Dick Dadey of the Citizens Union. A spokesman for Ponte said any disregard of city rules was “inadvertent” and would be corrected.