Carmen Feliciano will be the next PRFAA director

Washington DC Lawyer Carmen Feliciano will be the next director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration (PRFAA), Governor Pedro Pierluisi announced today.

Pierluisi offered the position this week to Feliciano, who was his chief of staff when he was a resident commissioner.

“I know Carmen’s work and professionalism, her competence and her experience in Washington DC very well. She is a hard-working woman dedicated to Puerto Rico who has served her country well from the federal capital where she is well respected and known.” appointed the governor.

The appointment comes two weeks after the new administration began and a few days after Pierluisi’s maiden trip to the US capital as governor, for Joe Biden’s inauguration January 20 as president. Former Prfaa director Jennifer Storipan resigned on December 28.

Pierluisi had recently indicated The new day that Feliciano would cooperate with his government in some way.

Until December, Feliciano was director of the Puerto Rico Senate Office.

Washington resident Commissioner Jenniffer González, who had fierce battles with advisers to then-Governor Ricardo Rosselló in the federal capital, had indicated that Governor Pierluisi had consulted her about the selection process for Prfaa’s leadership, which took longer than usual.

“Carmen’s experience with Puerto Rico’s affairs in the federal capital is indisputable as former Chief of Staff to current Governor Pierluisi, when he was a resident commissioner and heading the Senate office in Washington, from where we work on various issues. I welcome this appointment and congratulate the new director, ”said Commissioner González in the same statement in which Pierluisi made the appointment official.

The new director of Prfaa has a Bachelor of Arts, International Relations and French, Magna Cum Laude, and a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University.

The person in charge of Prfaa has had a salary of $ 150,000 a year for the past few years, although this was temporarily reduced to $ 135,000 during the reign of Alejandro García Padilla during the fiscal and government debt crisis. Under Ricardo Rosselló’s administration, the salary returned to $ 150,000 a year.

Of about a dozen offices it had at the start of the last decade, Prfaa has only one satellite office, in Orlando, Florida.

Prfaa’s budget has been cut to about $ 2.4 million per year, although the previous New Progressive Party (PNP) government passed a law after the election to allocate $ 1.2 million to cover the spending of to fund the Equality Commission.

Another law passed after the election before the legislature fell under the majority of the Popular Democratic Party (PPD) proposed to elect six state lobbyists in May who would have their base in Prfaa and are believed to be members of the Commission. of equality.

These statesman lobbyists, unlike the members of the Equality Commission, are said to be full-time employees of the government of Puerto Rico, with an office in Prfaa.