Governor’s Campaign Team Lands AAFAF Contracts for Public Relations and a “Social Thermometer”

The Fiscal Agency and Financial Advisory Authority (AAFAF, in Spanish) has awarded nearly $1 million this year in public relations, advertising, and communications contracts to several of Gov. Jenniffer González’s closest collaborators, a Centro de Periodismo Investigativo (CPI) investigation found.

Publicist Carlos Bermúdez, communications consultant Yolanda Rosaly, adviser Michael Ayala Carrión, and the advertising firm that managed her gubernatorial campaign, Veintinueve de Febrero, all secured contracts this year with AAFAF, the entity led by Francisco Domenech, who is also chief of staff and a former campaign director of González.

This is not the first time it has happened. During the past three New Progressive Party administrations, AAFAF has awarded contracts to the companies that ran the party’s political campaigns. It happened with KOI, Edwin Miranda’s advertising firm, when Ricardo Rosselló Nevares took office, and later with Publicidad Tere Suárez under Gov. Pedro Pierluisi.

According to the proposals currently under contract with AAFAF, the services range from media monitoring and crisis management to cost-benefit analysis of government advertising buys and the creation of a “social thermometer” to measure the problems affecting Puerto Ricans.

It is common practice for an incoming governor to bring campaign staff into the administration. But awarding contracts and overseeing that work from the agency charged with exerting fiscal control over the government conflicts with AAFAF’s mission: to act as fiscal agent, financial adviser, and information agent for the Government of Puerto Rico.

“AAFAF’s specific function is fiscal advisory. I am not aware that it has a role in advertising or marketing. This raises a question, because it would represent an expansion of its duties: Why is AAFAF engaging in this type of contracting?” said Urayoán Jordán Salivia, a public administration professor at the University of Puerto Rico.

The purpose of public administration is to manage the common good, he said, making it essential to understand what benefit such contracting brings to the public. The CPI requested invoices and work reports from about a dozen contractors in mid-November, but the agency has yet to provide the documents. A request for an interview with AAFAF’s director, submitted in January, also remains unanswered.

On Sunday, during a press conference called Informe Semanal (Weekly Report), the governor’s mansion barred the CPI from entering to ask Domenech questions related to this investigation. According to security personnel at La Fortaleza, they had been instructed to require the press credentials issued by the Department of State to access these briefings.

Nevertheless, the CPI submitted written questions asking AAFAF to justify this level of spending at an agency responsible for the government’s fiscal oversight, and to clarify how it supervises contractors working on behalf of the governor’s office. The agency did not respond.

AAFAF was created in 2016, amid the fiscal crisis that led to the enactment of the federal PROMESA law. It assumed the powers of the now-defunct Government Development Bank and became the government’s representative before financial markets and its point of contact with the Fiscal Control Board, which oversees the implementation of fiscal plans.

“This technical function of AAFAF becomes politicized if it enters the realm of communications and propaganda,” the public administration professor said. “If what you have is an effort to strengthen an image, you are essentially extending the political campaign, and that is not a function of government,” he added.

A Social Thermometer from Within AAFAF

In its proposal to AAFAF, advertising firm Veintinueve de Febrero includes media monitoring and public opinion research. The document describes plans to “develop a social thermometer on the issues of interest to the people of Puerto Rico” and to audit the government’s advertising purchases across media outlets.

The proposal also outlines the development of communications plans for AAFAF, an effort to “align” government agencies “with public policy and its communication,” and to centralize information related to “media, communications, and public opinion” in one place.

AAFAF agreed to pay the firm up to $200,000 for these services. So far this year, Veintinueve de Febrero has amassed more than $18 million in government contracts with other agencies, including the Department of the Treasury, the Office of Management and Budget, the Puerto Rico Tourism Company, and the Integrated Transportation Authority.

AAFAF also holds two additional communications consulting contracts, according to records from the Office of the Comptroller.

In March, OEIL Inc., a company registered under the name of publicist Carlos Bermúdez, secured a $60,000 contract with AAFAF, billed at $100 per hour according to the proposal. In August, with the start of the new fiscal year, AAFAF renewed Bermúdez’s contract, this time for $120,000.

Bermúdez, who is also an entrepreneur in the fashion industry and a publicist for artists including Maripily, was part of Ricardo Rosselló’s administration and a participant in the leaked Telegram chat exposed during the 2019 “Verano del ’19” protests, which culminated in the governor’s resignation.

Back in the governor’s office under González, Bermúdez’s responsibilities include “maintaining relationships with the media,” “collaborating in defining communications policy,” “advising on public affairs,” “advising agencies on crisis management,” and having the “flexibility to participate in events, meetings, or missions outside Puerto Rico,” among other tasks.

His company also holds contracts with the Department of Housing ($144,000) and the Puerto Rico Tourism Company ($120,000).

Another communications consulting contract at AAFAF is held by YMR & Asociados LLC, a company registered under the name of Yolanda Rosaly Alfonso.

In addition to monitoring media outlets, Rosaly — who also serves as Domenech’s press contact at the governor’s office — provides services such as “crisis management,” “media training,” “drafting and/or reviewing talking points,” and “building alliances with media outlets and key organizations,” according to the one-page proposal attached to the contract signed in July.

AAFAF’s “investment” in YMR & Asociados for this fiscal year “is up to a maximum of $243,000,” with an hourly rate of $125, the document states. Alongside the fiscal agency, YMR holds contracts this fiscal year with the Convention Center District Authority ($42,000) and the Department of the Family ($180,000).

Veintinueve de Febrero, Bermúdez, and Rosaly all worked on the governor’s campaign — and they are not the only ones hired by the government’s fiscal agency after the 2024 elections.

Michael Ayala Carrión, a close collaborator of González and a friend of Domenech, also appears as a contractor at AAFAF through his firm, Stonepath Solutions. According to the contract signed in September, Ayala provides intergovernmental and legislative relations services, event planning, meeting coordination, and management of “complex projects,” for a total of $144,000.

“Although we are a young firm, our team has a solid track record in government relations, legislative management, and coordinating multisector projects,” reads the proposal signed by Stonepath’s executive director, Gerardo Colón Toro, who is listed as an authorized representative of the company incorporated in mid-December 2024.

Ayala, who worked with González when she served as resident commissioner, also advised the team that drafted her platform and later joined the committee that organized her inauguration.

In addition to the AAFAF contract, Stonepath holds an agreement with the General Services Administration ($85,000).

A Phantom Contract with Houlihan Lokey

To support the effort to resolve the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority bankruptcy — one of González’s campaign pledges — AAFAF announced in January that it would bring on a new financial consulting firm: Houlihan Lokey.

A month after the announcement, Domenech asserted that the new consultants had succeeded in extending a key agreement between the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and its creditors as part of the bankruptcy process underway in federal court under PROMESA.

“The results speak for themselves. The mediators were exhausted by the process, ready to throw in the towel and let the court resolve the litigation. It was the efforts of this public servant, together with those of Houlihan Lokey and under the governor’s instructions, that convinced the mediators to request a 45-day extension of the litigation stay so the parties could return to negotiations,” the AAFAF director said in an interview with El Nuevo Día.

But more than 10 months after those comments, there is still no contract registered for Houlihan Lokey with any government agency in the Office of the Comptroller, as required by law. The office has previously stated that any payment to a government contractor without a registered contract would be invalid.

The CPI asked AAFAF about the status of the contract, but the agency did not respond.

The Office of the Comptroller confirmed to the CPI that no contract exists under the consulting firm’s name.

Ten years ago, Houlihan Lokey represented a group of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority bondholders — several of whom remain creditors of the public corporation. Although Domenech denied this, as well as any conflict of interest in selecting the firm, a CPI fact check found documents showing otherwise.

At least three of those hedge funds continue to hold PREPA debt.

Meanwhile, AAFAF is also covering the cost of three Washington, D.C., lobbying firms that say they are positioning the González administration in key federal conversations.

Although the Office of Federal Affairs — which has its own budget — approves the invoices submitted by the firms, the more than $1.5 million in payments comes out of AAFAF’s budget.

Besides the new lobbyists in Washington and the purported hiring of Houlihan Lokey — which has not been formalized — AAFAF has continued to employ nearly a dozen consultants and law firms that have worked on PROMESA- and bankruptcy-related matters since the administration of Ricardo Rosselló Nevares.

The list includes the financial consulting firms Deloitte and Ankura, as well as the law firms O’Melveny & Myers and Marini Pietrantoni Muñiz. Renewal of these contracts for the group representing the Government of Puerto Rico in the PROMESA proceedings exceeded $22 million in public funds, solely within AAFAF’s budget.

The agency’s budget for this fiscal year totals $47 million, a $2 million increase from the previous year.

This translation was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and clarity.