Puerto Rico’s Debt Payments Set to Take Up 16% of Next Budget
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Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla proposed a $9.8 billion budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 that includes the largest chunk allocated for debt repayment in more than a decade.
Principal and interest costs are set to reach $1.5 billion, or almost 16 percent of the spending plan, up from 12 percent this year, Luis Cruz, the junk-rated commonwealth’s budget director, said Thursday in a press conference in the capital San Juan. The allocation would be the most since at least fiscal 2004, he said.