Milwaukee debt manager moves east to join Connecticut treasurer's office

The Milwaukee comptroller’s longtime debt specialist, Richard Li, has departed to join the Connecticut state treasurer’s office.

Li, a public debt specialist who led management of the city’s debt under three comptrollers, left the office earlier this week to join Treasurer Shawn Wooden’s office to manage one of its debt programs, a position that opened up following a retirement.

“We are thrilled to welcome Richard Li to Connecticut. We know that his wealth of experience and knowledge will benefit the state of Connecticut’s bonding programs and add to the growing momentum from our office recently achieving major credit rating upgrades earlier this year for the first time in two decades,” Wooden said in a statement.

Li started Friday. He joined the comptroller’s office, now led by Aycha Sawa, in September 2002. After attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for a degree in math and computer science, his public finance career began at John Nuveen & Co. where he spent 13 years as a quantitative specialist.

While his background was in computer science, Nuveen had sent out a list of available internships and he landed one. When a public finance job opened up he was offered it. He later received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

“Being a quan guy, I knew how to use all the tools of the industry,” such as products like swaps, extendible municipal commercial paper and floating-rate structures. “You have to understand what the risks are,” Li said. “If the city needs something I can do it.”

During his tenure managing the city's and school district’s debt, he launched the use of new products and streamlined issuance consolidating issues down to just a couple a year with lines of credit providing interim financings.

Li started under longtime comptroller Wally Morics who retired in 2011 after five terms. Martin Matson won the office in 2012 and served through 2020. Matson did not seek a third term. Sawa won the 2020 election.

He made the move because of the opportunity to “branch out and do more with a large state-level issuer and to do new and larger deals,” Li said.

“We are sad to be losing Richard and the wealth of knowledge and expertise that he possesses,” said Deputy Milwaukee Comptroller Joshua Benson. “At the same time we are excited for him as he takes on a new challenge in his career. The City will continue to maintain our bond websites at www.milwaukeebonds.com and www.mpsbonds.com, where information can be found about upcoming bond sales.”

Benton will fill Li’s shoes as the comptroller’s office works with the city’s Department of Employee Relations to evaluate the pay structure for the position compared to the market before seeking permanent candidates.

Li joins a state that has enjoyed a rating upswing with four upgrades this year.

Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings cut Milwaukee’s ratings in 2020 as it struggled amid the pandemic, stagnant state revenues and state imposed tax caps, and rising expenses.

Rising pension contributions loom large. The city’s current annual payment of about $71 million is expected to double in 2023 to more than $145 million. The payments are guided by a schedule set every five years. Mayor Tom Barrett appointed a task forceappointed a task force in June to explore options to deal with the spike.