Thread by @DataRepublican

🗂️ THREAD: Following the Money Trail in Puerto Rico: Robert F. Mujica, Jr.

I’ve been digging into Puerto Rico's tax incentives for a while now. That research quickly led into the world of fiscal governance and bankruptcy oversight.

One name kept surfacing: Robert F. Mujica, Jr.

Mujica is a former New York State Budget Director who now serves as Executive Director of Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB), the entity that oversees the island’s finances. And by some accounts, now making over 9× the Governor’s salary to “oversee” Puerto Rico’s finances.

Paid with Puerto Rican taxpayer money, Mujica runs the Financial Oversight & Management Board, the group deciding how much gets cut and what gets sold off.

This is important as Americans debate the statehood of Puerto Rico....

Patience as I pull the thread together...

Mujica served as Cuomo's NY budget director, earning 216K/year. He would get offered a position on Puerto Rico's state fiscal board, wherein his salary would triple to 625K. This despite that Puerto Rico has a population of 3.2 million, far less than NYC's population of ~8.8 million.

This happened contemporarily as Mets owner Steve Cohen paid 105K for his consulting services. His Puerto Rico role was announced in late 2022, his Mets consulting service in 2023.

Mujica served on the board of more than 30 organizations. His reach was so great that the New York Focus questioned if he was breaking the state law on not monetizing his insider positions for 2 years.

Mujica himself was born in Puerto Rico, then earned a BA in Sociology from Brooklyn College at the City University of New York. He received his master’s degree in Government Administration from the University of Pennsylvania and a Juris Doctorate from Albany Law School.

Of the job as Cuomo's budget officer, he'd say that he spent more than half his life in the service of advising government officials.

Mujica succeeded Natalie Jaresko as Puerto Rico's Oversight Board director at the same salary - but this salary was 625K. To put this in context, the average household income in Puerto Rico is 22K, versus an average household income in NYC of 128K - a multiple of nearly 6.

In short, if Mujica were paid in NYC the same cost of living he were paid in Puerto Rico to serve as its executive director, he'd be paid 3.6 million dollars.

And indeed, if Puerto Rico were admitted to the United States, it'd be the poorest state by far. The next highest household income by state is more than double of Puerto Rico's - Mississippi at 49K.

If the 625K salary of being PR's Oversight Board’s executive director on January 1, 2023 wasn't enough - Mujica would go onto establish a consulting service (Hawk Hill) which offered consulting for Hard Rock Cafe of all companies. His LinkedIn gives no indication that he stepped down from this role to serve in this consulting position.

NYC watchdogs ceded that Mujica was in a "gray area" regarding lobbying restrictions on former state officials.

Hard Rock in 2025 outright states that it is paying Mujica a "fixed fee" for "providing legistative strategy and other strategic planning services." While in his Puerto Rico role.

Mujica's role was to oversee a budget of ~59 million with ~98 staff. His FOMB approved a privatization contract for PREPA’s power plants with Genera PR/New Fortress. The deal drew Congressional scrutiny for reducing a required performance bond from $100 million to $10 million.

I am not the first to hit on Mujica. @LauraLoomer has done it before:

@LauraLoomer Personally, I believe in Puerto Rico's ability to swing red and be a net benefit to the United States. 2024 represented a major shift of Latinos to Trump. The winning issues are the same issues as any American -- food costs, crime, housing.

Overall, Puerto Rico is held back by its own corruption, with an UN report estimating it has lost 14% of its GDP due to macroeconomic policy (partially driven by corruption).

We need to kick double-dipper like Mujica out, greatly reduce the salaries of the Oversight Board (it shouldn't take nine times the COL-adjusted salary of running NYC's budget), and overall, take charge of Puerto Rico just as we are doing in DC.

And maybe, just maybe, we can gain seats.

I am invested in Puerto Rico now because my husband and I are trying to budget a visit there for tax reasons. We'll keep you updated.

@LauraLoomer Here is a thread by @JamesHartline on Mujica's donations:

@LauraLoomer @JamesHartline Comparing the FOMB fiscals from three years ago to today shows a drastic jump in "Professional Services" :

Most critically:

The FOMB was created by PROMESA nine years ago (Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act), which was a custom bankruptcy restructuring law for Puerto Rico. The FOMB has been the subject of much criticism, but PREPA (Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority) has to complete its debt restructuring before it can be sunsetted.

@LauraLoomer @JamesHartline My big question is, what incentives exist for the FOMB and Mujica to actually complete this restructuring, given the pay structure?