NY state budget chief is named fiscal board executive director
By The Star Staff
The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico announced Thursday that it has appointed Robert F. Mujica Jr. as executive director.
Mujica will succeed former executive director Natalie Jaresko when he joins the oversight board on Jan. 1, 2023, after a long and extraordinarily distinguished career in New York state government, where he currently serves as budget director.
“Robert Mujica is a game changer,” said the oversight board’s chairman, David Skeel. “He has the skills, the experience, and the passion to continue the Oversight Board’s work helping Puerto Rico to achieve long-term fiscal responsibility and implement the reforms necessary to create a solid foundation for sustainable economic growth.”
Mujica became New York’s budget director in 2015 after more than a decade working with legislative leaders and other government officials in New York on budget, fiscal and policy issues. Mujica was chief of staff to the president pro tempore and majority leader of the Senate, and served concurrently as secretary to the New York Senate Finance Committee.
“Puerto Rico is the home of my grandparents and the birthplace of my parents,” Mujica said. “It is a special place to me, and I want to see it prosper. My work in New York was dedicated to fiscal responsibility, budgetary stability, transparency, and economic growth. New York succeeded in all these areas. Puerto Rico can succeed too.”
According to his biography, as budget director Mujica oversees the overall development and management of the state’s fiscal policy, including the preparation of budget recommendations for all state agencies and programs, economic and revenue forecasting, tax policy, fiscal planning, capital financing and management of the state’s debt portfolio.
As the New York State Senate’s chief fiscal adviser, he was the lead negotiator responsible for all state budget and policy negotiations on behalf of the Senate leadership. For more than two decades, Mujica advised various elected and other government officials in New York on state budget, fiscal and policy issues.
Mujica was appointed to the board of trustees of The City University of New York in 2016. He is vice chair of the board’s committees on audit and fiscal affairs.