The City of Lathrop ended last fiscal year with enough money in its general fund to run the city for an entire year without any additional revenue coming in.

In the report that was prepared by the city’s auditor, Lathrop also received a Certificate of Achievement in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association from the previous fiscal year – another feather in the city’s cap for safeguarding the public’s funds and preserving the trust of citizens.

And now the city is putting out an open call for firms capable of providing auditing services of the city’s books – a generally-accepted practice intended to prevent complacency on the part of the firm that is hired to make sure that best practices are being followed when it comes to keeping track of the dollars and cents.

Earlier this week the city announced a request for proposals for auditing firms employing certified public accountants capable of analyzing its financial statements for the fiscal year that is set to end on June 30 – hoping to secure council approval of the chosen firm in early May before signing a contract that will provide the service to Lathrop through June 30, 2025.

The deadline to submit a proposal for consideration will be 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 26.

While just over a decade ago the city was facing budget shortfalls in the neighborhood of $15 million thanks to the collapse of the retail housing market and the abundance of foreclosures that resulted in plummeting property values – property tax assessments plummeted and resulted in belt-tightening across local governments reliant on that revenue – the city has since rebounded thanks to a combination of commercial, light industrial, and residential growth largely unparalleled to anywhere else in Northern California.

Based on the population of the city in 2022, Lathrop has seen a nearly 60 percent increase to the city’s population over the course of the last decade – making it the fastest-growing city in Northern California ahead of the wealthy Bay Area enclave of Dublin – and put it just behind the Southern California community of Vernon which saw its population nearly double in the last 10 years.

And that growth has resulted in a financial position that is the envy of the rest of California.

According to the State of California’s annual local government high risk assessment, Lathrop was ranked 421 out of 430 cities in California when determining local governments that are at a high risk due to a due a combination of debt, reduced revenue streams, and pension obligations. Lathrop is the only city in Northern California not located in the Bay Area or on the coast that cracked the Top 10.

To contact Bulletin reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.