Brian Della recently took hold of the reins of the city of Shawano’s money as the new finance director, months after Greg Smith stepped down to take a finance position with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.
Della has served as an independent municipal adviser for 19 years in Wisconsin, advising on over 450 local government debt issues. This will be his first time working directly for a municipality when it comes to handling the money.
Della has a master of business administration in finance and accounting from the Kelly School of Business at Indiana University. He also has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil and environmental engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Della grew up in the Waukesha and Brookfield area.
Getting the engineering degrees, Della went to Kansas City to be an engineering consultant for five years.
“I had focused on environmental engineering and I focused on landfills in my graduate studies, a real niche kind of education,” Della said.
When Della went to Indiana for his MBA, his track turned him toward investments, he said, thinking he would be a bond portfolio manager for an insurance company. Then he moved back to Wisconsin, specifically Milwaukee, started as a municipal adviser and didn’t look back.
“The city (of Shawano) borrows about $4.5 million every other year for their capital projects. If they were my client, that’s what I’d help them do. I’d help them plan the repayment, help them budget for it,” Della said.
A time of financial crisis last summer had prompted Della to seek a new job, and he saw that the finance director position for Shawano was available. Having been in a position that has non-compete clauses in the contracts, he felt it would be better to find something in municipalities, even if it was as a budget analyst.
“I’m friends with a couple of guys I went to college, and they were from Shawano, so I’m kind of familiar (with the area),” Della said. “One of them … he had a little lake house here during the summer, so I’ve been in the area from time to time.”
Even with friends from the area, he hadn’t met anyone with the city because he’d never been a consultant for Shawano, but after interviewing with city leaders, he felt the area was a good fit for him. He described the city as a “well-run organization.”
“Some organizations can appear dysfunctional, even to a person on a first meeting, and there was no such feeling here in the city,” Della said. “It seemed like a lot of people had been here for a long time, and it was very well run, and people get along here.”
City Administrator Eddie Sheppard noted that Della brings a unique skillset to the city with financial consulting and advising, as he brings ideas on how Shawano can invest and maximize its funds. It makes him an unconventional finance director, Sheppard said.
“We’re already doing a lot of modeling of our utilities and our capital plans with an eye on the future,” Sheppard said. “That’s something that most municipalities our size don’t necessarily have the luxury of having. We have a small staff, and we’re grinding out day-to-day and year-to-year. With Brian’s abilities, we’re going to take a farther look out to make sure, as we’re navigating financial challenges, he brings a wealth of knowledge to that process.”
Even with his financial knowledge, Della expects to face some challenges. He said his background in finance does not include accounting, so he anticipates it will take some time to get up to speed on utilizing the city’s software.
“A lot of that will be a learning experience,” Della said. “Conceptually, I’ve got a broad understanding on most things, but sometimes putting the numbers in the system, I’ve got some learning there.”
lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com
Della takes charge as city’s finance director
