Kathy Hochul, the new governor of New York, has made it clear she wants to make a clean break from the Andrew Cuomo years and shore up her reelection prospects. The former lieutenant governor to the disgraced Cuomo, Hochul has purged numerous holdovers from his administration and made a few concrete policy changes, including announcing the correct number of coronavirus deaths and speeding up the release of funds for rental relief.

But amid the congratulatory coverage of Hochul, who does seem aware that she needs to mark a shift from all things Cuomo, there was one recent decision that should trouble millions of New Yorkers: Robert Mujica, Cuomo’s budget director, will continue to work under Hochul. The announcement of Mujica’s place in the new Hochul administration shows that the new governor will only go so far to listen to progressives.

Mujica, for most, might be another anonymous bureaucrat, a staffer retained for his extensive knowledge of state government. Under Cuomo, Mujica sat on more than thirty boards across the state, holding posts with the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), the City University of New York (CUNY) Board of Trustees, and the Public Authorities Control Board. This gave him inordinate influence over the workings of state government.