Nicole K. ConleyManaging Director, Austin

Experience

Twenty-one years deciding how public money gets spent. Since November 2020, financing the institutions that spend it.

A government sale is a long procurement with a public vote at the end of it. I have prepared one from the inside and I originate them from the outside, which means I know which questions arrive late and what they cost when they do.

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Who I work with

Independent school districts
Texas
Cities and counties
Texas
Utility issuers
Texas
My firm
Minority and women owned
Community colleges
Texas
University systems
Texas

The work

Four things decide what a public program costs. I have been accountable for all four, first to a school board and now to the issuers I finance.

How much to borrow, against what capacity, in what structure, and whether the board and the community were brought along. As a chief financial officer I answered for all four to a board. I now work on the same four from the other side, which is why the useful conversation happens years before a sale rather than at it.

Capacity and tax impact

What a district can borrow, what it will cost its taxpayers, and how the arithmetic moves with enrollment, valuation growth and recapture. The work that sets a program's cost happens here, years ahead of the sale.

Structure and timing

Tax-exempt and taxable, new money and refunding, and when to come to market. A structure that suits the market and one that suits the district are not always the same structure.

Ratings and investors

Presenting a district's credit to rating agencies and to buyers, which is a different exercise from presenting it to a board, and requires knowing what each audience is actually asking.

Boards and voters

Bond programs are approved by people who vote. Explaining a capital plan to a community and defending it is part of the financing, not a step that follows it.

Where I have operated

Texas public issuers, worked out of the Austin office I opened in November 2020.

My practice at Siebert Williams Shank is centered on independent school districts in Texas, alongside municipal, county and utility issuers. The firm is a minority- and women-owned investment bank, which matters in a market where public entities weigh that in how they award business.

I sit on the board of the Municipal Advisory Council of Texas and of the Travis Central Appraisal District, a government body, and serve as Vice Chair of Finance for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. I was appointed by the Speaker of the Texas House to the Texas Commission on Public School Finance, whose recommendations led to House Bill 3 and its $11.6 billion school finance package, and I have testified before the Texas House Public Education Committee in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

The buying side

At Austin ISD the capital plan, the operating budget and the systems contract all went to the same board.

Strategic sourcing for the New York City Department of Education, resource allocation for DC Public Schools, budgets for Fairfax County, then eleven years signing for Austin ISD. A capital plan, an operating budget and a systems contract are one set of constraints going to one board, and I have been the person who had to defend all three.

The budget is one budget

Debt service, operations and the systems a district runs on all come out of the same fund balance and the same tax rate. Treating a financing decision and a purchasing decision as separate conversations is how districts end up committed to both and short on one.

Procurement is the real timeline

A public agency does not buy when it decides to buy. It buys when the budget cycle, the procurement rules and the board calendar line up. I have run that process from the inside, and it is longer and less forgiving than anyone selling into it expects.

Somebody signs, in public

Every purchase has a name on it, and that person answers for it to a board and to taxpayers for years. I sit on the board of LINQ Technologies, a K-12 education software company, and I was the signature on the other side for two decades.

How a public-sector sale actually happens

For twenty-one years I was the one signing, the last eleven at a district with a $3 billion budget and capital program.

Selling to a government body is not a pitch, it is a long procurement with a public vote at the end of it and a named person who has to defend the decision for years. Getting in front of that person is most of the job. I spent two decades being that person, and I have stayed in the rooms where they are.

The rooms, not a list

I sit on the board of the Municipal Advisory Council of Texas and of the Travis Central Appraisal District, a government body, and I am Vice Chair of Finance for the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. The Speaker of the Texas House appointed me to the Texas Commission on Public School Finance, and I testified before the House Public Education Committee in 2016, 2017 and 2019. Those rooms are where school finance in this state gets decided, and I have been in them.

Why they believe me

Five public institutions across four states and the District of Columbia: strategic sourcing at the New York City Department of Education, resource allocation at DC Public Schools, budgets at Fairfax County, deputy CFO at Atlanta, then eleven years running a $3 billion budget and capital program at Austin ISD. When a finance officer describes a constraint, I have lived inside it.

What it converts to

49 days from being registered to the issue date of my first transaction, 76 to its delivery date, and, as the originating banker, $6.5 billion across 28 institutions in my first two years, out of an office that did not exist before me. That is 44 transactions: 12 my firm ran as lead or co-lead, $1.6 billion, and 32 we co-managed, $4.9 billion. Par throughout is the issuers' own total deal size, not my firm's underwriting share and not my revenue. Across the whole window since November 2020 the count is 61 distinct Texas public institutions, those 28 among them. Relationships are only worth what they close.

Questions I get

Eight questions, four from people who buy and four from people who issue.

Every answer is about my own record and my own practice. Nothing here is advice about what your institution should do, nothing here is a view on the market, and every figure in them is the one published elsewhere on this site.

You spent years buying for public agencies. What did that involve?

Deciding what a public institution buys, from whom, and on what terms. I was Director of Strategic Sourcing at the New York City Department of Education from 1999 to 2003, Director of Resource Allocation and Management at DC Public Schools from 2003 to 2007, Budget Director at Fairfax County Public Schools from 2007 to 2008, Deputy Chief Financial Officer at Atlanta Public Schools from 2008 to 2009, and then chief financial officer at Austin ISD. Public procurement is slow, rule-bound and visible, and the person who signs is accountable to a board and to taxpayers for years afterward.

Why does a bond banker care how a district buys software?

Because the same budget pays for both, and both go to the same board. A district's capital plan, its operating budget and its systems spending are one set of constraints, not three. I sit on the board of LINQ Technologies, a K-12 education software company, and I ran the procurement or the budget side of five public school systems before that.

What decides whether a public agency buys something?

Whether the person signing can defend it in public. In my experience on the buying side, a public purchase has to survive a budget cycle, a procurement process, a board vote and, often, a press question. Price matters, but so does whether the commitment still looks sound in three years to people who were not in the room.

How early should a district talk to a banker about a bond?

I am usually in the room two to three years before a sale, because that is when the decisions that set a program's cost are still open. By the time a transaction is structured, the size of the program, the capacity it rests on and the tax-rate impact a board has already seen are mostly fixed. I spent eleven years on the other side of that timeline as Austin ISD's chief financial officer, so I know which questions show up late and what they cost when they do.

Have you sat on the issuer's side of a bond yourself?

Yes, for twenty-one years. I was chief financial officer of Austin ISD from 2009 to 2020 and later its Chief of Business and Operations, running a $3 billion budget and capital program with more than 1,600 staff. Before Austin I held budget and procurement leadership roles at Fairfax County Public Schools, DC Public Schools, Atlanta Public Schools and the New York City Department of Education. I have written the budget, run the procurement and carried a program to a board for a public vote.

What is the difference between the roles your firm takes on a transaction?

On a senior-managed deal, where we are lead or co-lead manager, my firm structures the transaction, prices it and puts its own capital behind it. On a co-managed deal we take a share of an underwriting another firm is running. Of the 156 transactions I originated between November 2020 and September 2026, 60 were senior-managed and 96 were co-managed. The two are different work and the numbers should not be added as though they were the same.

Which Texas issuers have you done transactions for?

Sixty-one distinct Texas issuers between November 2020 and September 2026, across 156 completed transactions. Most are independent school districts, and the rest are cities, counties, community colleges, university systems and state agencies. The twelve largest transactions my firm ran are named, dated and sized on my track record page.

Do you work outside Texas?

My practice is Texas. I opened Siebert Williams Shank's Austin office in November 2020 and I lead it; the firm did business in Texas before then, and the Austin office is mine. The transaction record I publish comes from the Municipal Advisory Council of Texas and covers Texas issuers only.

Call me before the capacity study, not after a board has already seen a number in the paper.

An early conversation costs an hour and commits you to nothing.

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