In just over one month the City of Lathrop will have its own police department for the first time in more than three decades of incorporation.

While the City of Lathrop allocated more than $7 million – not counting the cost of the building that will house the agency in River Islands – for the transition away from the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department to the Lathrop Police Department, more than $5 million of that money remains unspent as of last week.

According to the staff report for a number of items related to the police department that was approved by the Lathrop City Council last week, of the $7.16 million allocated to cover the cost of the transition Lathrop has more than $5.5 million of that funding remaining.

In short – it doesn’t appear that Lathrop will be spending all the money that it allocated in order to get the new department up off the ground.

With getting away from the escalating pension costs associated with contracted county employees and the startup costs associated with hiring new officers as some of the prime reasons why Lathrop would be making the jump to its own agency, the addition of more sworn personnel for a reduced price was one of the things that attracted the attention of the council and led to the discussions and ultimate decision to move forward with the longstanding goal.

And after the council’s action last week, the number of sworn personnel will be increasing even more with the addition to two more police officers to the department.

In the wake of school violence across America, the council approved adding an additional school resource officer position as well as a dedicated community resource officer position similar to the job that is being done by Mike Kelly with the Manteca Police Department. The CRO position would be able to respond to lower-level crime calls and quality of life issues like homelessness, property damage, theft, and other issues that would keep routine patrol officers free to respond to emergency calls and other priority matters.