The City University of New York bypassed procurement rules to steer a fat $1.25 million, no-bid contract to a favored firm as part of its ad and marketing “rebranding” campaign, The Post has learned.

The large no-bid contract to Siegelvision has raised eyebrows because there is no shortage of ad firm competition in New York City, long considered the global capital for advertising and marketing firms, sources said.

“This is another example of how CUNY and [State University of New York] non-profits have been spinning out of control. They need independent oversight from the attorney general and comptroller and more transparency,” said John Kaehny, executive director of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany.

The ads have been ubiquitous in the subway cars, greeting strangers and touting CUNY as the “The Greatest Urban University in the World.” One ad boasts, “In Paris they have a tower, In London they have a bridge, In New York we have a University.”

CUNY brass authorized the no-bid contract through the university’s main not-for-profit arm, the CUNY Research Foundation sources said.

The state inspector general’s office is now investigating CUNY’s contract with Siegelvision as part of its sweeping probe of the university’s questionable spending, including through its various not-for-profit foundations.

A CUNY spokesman said “we are cooperating with the inspector general’s office” and declined further comment on the details regarding the no-bid contract or the rationale behind it.

Government watchdog groups slammed CUNY’s bypassing of bidding requirements and noted the Buffalo Billion bid-rigging scandal that has engulfed Gov. Cuomo’s administration emanated from a contract managed by not-profit arm of SUNY, Fort Schuyler Management.

Defendants Alain Kaleyeros, the former president of SUNY Polytechnic Institute, who was a key architect of Cuomo’s upstate economic development programs and executives from contractor from LP Ciminelli, major donors to Cuomo’s campaign committee, will soon go to trial in Manhattan federal court on corruption changes.

Education corporations like CUNY and SUNY are not subject to independent oversight by the AG Charities Bureau, and it’s subsidiaries have operated with little or no scrutiny — until recently.

Former City College President Lisa Coico resigned under fire in 2016 amid a federal probe that she took $136,000 for personal expenses from a school-related foundation without prior approval. CUNY chairman Bill Thompson then requested that state Inspector Catherine Leahy Scott conduct a broader probe of spending practices by CUNY and its affiliates.

CUNY’s Board of Trustees last years approved a series of accountability and transparency measures surrounding CUNY spending — including at its affiliate foundations — to “ensure oversight and compliance in fiscal and legal matters.” The overhaul was based on recommendations made in an interim report issued by the IG’s office.

Siegelvision’s website cites other colleges as clients — including NYU and Cornell Engineering.