By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
City administrators said a newly-hired operations and compliance auditor will help city departments operate more “efficiently and effectively.”
Scot Carcasi, a former Del Rio Fire Department lieutenant, was introduced as the new city operations and compliance auditor to the Del Rio City Council at its meeting Nov. 8.
Human Resources Director Mario Garcia introduced Carcasi, saying Carcasi grew up in Katy, Texas, and graduated from Katy High School. After high school, Carcasi attended Texas State University, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice.
Garcia said Carcasi worked for the Del Rio Fire Department from October 1992 until October 2015, attaining the rank of lieutenant at the time of his retirement from the department. He earned the department’s firefighter of the year award in 2008.
Carcasi next worked for the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District, serving as its maintenance coordinator from October 2015 until this year.
“We are very excited to have Mr. Carcasi as part of our team. It’s been awhile that we’ve had this position advertised, so we are glad to have him on board, and we welcome him,” Garcia said.
Carcasi spoke to the council, telling members, “I’m very excited to be back with the city of Del Rio. I think there’s a lot of positive things happening here in the city, and I am very excited to be part of the team again.”
Mayor Al Arreola and the council members welcomed Carcasi, and City Manager John Sheedy noted Carcasi “has hit the ground running,” already generating a lengthy report during his first week.
After the meeting, Sheedy made additional comments about Carcasi and the position to The 830 Times.
“I’m grateful that our city administration has been able to add another important component to our team by hiring Mr. Scot Carcasi as our new Operations and Compliance Auditor. Operations and Compliance Auditor is a new position for which we had requested council approval,” Sheedy said.
“The primary function of this position will be to assist city management with determining how efficiently and effectively departments are managing their resources and to provide such information in a comprehensive manner so that best decisions can be made to correct or improve any areas of concern and also to ensure we are maximizing available resources,” the city manager added.
Sheedy said the job will consist “of making deep and detailed investigative assessments of all variables related to the department or specific tasks/responsibilities within departments, such as staffing/work schedules, equipment, policies, any related ordinances and everything else that impacts the level of productivity and success related to the area of review, then to assist with development of new policies and procedures that will enhance performance and productivity and finally, to maintain constant and close operational monitoring to ensure new processes and policies continue to be followed.”
“From a city manager’s perspective, it seems that the first and oftentimes most difficult roadblock to fixing or improving something is finding out exactly how and why it might be broken or lacking in the first place. Solutions are often not as simple as they might seem, and the first goal is to implement improvements using what we currently have in place without stepping into any additional funding,” Sheedy said.
“There is a tremendous amount of research and reporting necessary to optimize and maintain optimization of city operations, but Mr. Carcasi’s experience and knowledge is very relative to the position, and we’re expecting great things from him as our Operations and Compliance Auditor. Mr. Carcasi will be working with all departments eventually, but of course we’ve given him one of our bigger challenges right off the bat, and that is a comprehensive review of our animal control operations.
“Mr. Carcasi provided us with a 38-page presentation in his first week. The commitment to detail and level of comprehensiveness of the work he has provided will absolutely help us move faster and further. As city administration and the Del Rio City Council endeavor to make substantive upgrades to our city’s animal control operations, Mr. Carcasi’s work will be used as the foundation for our new policies, procedures and resource allotments for the department as we move towards a new shelter in the near future.
“I’m very excited to have our new Operations and Compliance Auditor on board and already helping us move the ball forward. I’m equally anxious to begin presenting other important organizational changes to council for approval that will allow our city organization to be able to keep up with the increasing demands and responsibilities of our growing community,” Sheedy said.
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