LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport City Council received a favorable audit report on the city’s financial conditions at its Tuesday night meeting.

“All of our audit opinions are unqualified, which as far as auditors go is the best you can get,” Joseph Arch, a certified public accountant, president and chief executive officer of the auditing firm JJACPA told the council.

City Finance Director Dan Buffalo introduced the report with a brief presentation on budget highlights.

For the year ending June 30, 2011, Buffalo said Lakeport’s net assets totaled nearly $21 million, with an unassigned general fund balance of $2.39 million and excess revenue of $182,729. Water and sewer enterprise funds totaled about $1.5 million and were down slightly.

Net assets in the city in the 2010-11 fiscal year increased by $1.29 million, which Buffalo said was mostly a result of reorganizing revenue from city-issued loans.

Buffalo said the city contracted with JJACPA, an independent auditing firm based in Pleasanton, to look at the city’s books and examine internal controls. The city, redevelopment agency and sewer district were assessed, and an audit also was performed based on a requirement for receiving federal funds.

Arch, whose firm has more than 25 years of government auditing and accounting experience, brought a team of three auditors to the city and spent 14 days reviewing the city’s general ledger and internal controls, and performing tests.

“I’m happy to say there weren’t any problems,” said Arch. “Everybody was very helpful and we were able to do our audit in a timely basis.”

He said he and his team didn’t come up with any recommendations regarding internal controls that needed to be brought to the city council’s attention.

Arch told the council that the Lakeport audit was the first time that he and his team came out into the field and actually had a report ready to audit. “It was really a pleasure to have that to work on.”

“We’re so proud,” said Mayor Stacey Mattina.

“You should be, it’s an accomplishment,” said Arch.

Arch, who also is a reviewer for the Government Finance Officers Association, said he can usually tell if a city prepares its financials or has an auditor do it, noting that it’s interesting to see how many cities don’t prepare their own.

The council voted unanimously to accept and file the audit report.

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