With almost 30 years of experience in government finance at the municipal, county, and state levels, Merrill Shepherd King is a public servant at heart who remains an enthusiastic booster of local government. After graduating from Princeton University with a bachelor’s in political science, she later attained her master’s degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs – University of Texas at Austin. She has found every one of her professional positions both personally and professionally fulfilling, especially those in local government, where one can more readily see the impact of their efforts.

For the last 15 years of her government work, Merrill served as the Finance Director and Treasurer of the City of Minnetonka, Minnesota, which is a suburb of around 50,000 just west of Minneapolis. She is a past Executive Board member of the Government Finance Officers Association of the U.S. and Canada (GFOA), where she acted as the chair of the GFOA’s Governmental Budgeting & Fiscal Policy Standing Committee, as an ex-officio member to the GFOA’s Economic Development and Capital Planning Committee, and as a member of the GFOA Code of Ethics Task Force. She was also an active participant with the League of Minnesota Cities, serving on both standing committees and a legislative task force.

Merrill currently lives in Fort Worth, Texas and continues her work in local government finance as a reviewer of local government budgets from across the country. However, having spoken on local government finance subjects at numerous professional conferences and having served as both a lecturer and an adjunct professor for college programs in public affairs, she grew concerned about the difficulties local governments are having with staff recruitment, particularly in the area of finance. Merrill now focuses her dedication and enthusiasm for her profession in her work with SGR to bring more capable people to local government and help to ensure the critical efforts of counties, cities, and towns thrive.