State crime lab needs an infusion
Editorial
Great Falls Tribune
December 18, 2006
District Judge Dirk Sandefur tore into the Montana State Crime Lab last week.
He was justifiably frustrated by the lengthy delay in getting homicide evidence processed at the lab.
Bill Unger, director of the crime lab, nurses frustrations of his own.
Just try recruiting qualified scientists when labs elsewhere pay tens of thousands a year more in salary.
He's crossing his fingers that the 2007 Montana Legislature will approve two new positions and pass a bill crafted by Rep. John Parker, D-Great Falls, bumping wages.
There's clearly a need.
In the case that had Sandefur riled, a murder trial was delayed some five months because DNA evidence on a bloody boot hadn't been processed.
Even with the delay, "I have no confidence that (by April) the crime lab will have gotten to this," he said.
He could be right. Unger said the current backlog for DNA testing is nine months. That's far shy of the one-month turnaround the lab strives for, or even the three- to four-month turnaround that is often the case.
The huge delay is the result of three of the lab's four DNA scientists leaving. The lab shut down for seven months while new workers were hired, but the cases kept pouring in.
With a required training period of nearly eight months, the lab is still getting back up to speed. Unger figures it may take until next summer to get the caseload under control.
In the meantime, he worries that once the scientists are fully trained, they'll be attractive targets for private labs dangling offers of bigger salaries.
Newer scientists at the lab earn about $23 an hour; experienced ones make about $25. That works out to a range of $47,800 to $52,000 a year, based on a 40-hour week.
Unger said a 10 or 15 percent increase would go a long way in helping retain qualified staff.
The DNA section is one of several at the crime lab. Unger is also requesting an extra staff position in both the fingerprinting and toxicology units.
He noted that families become especially distressed when the toxicology lab — which identifies causes of death — has lengthy delays that keep the family from getting a death certificate.
The crime lab's services are vital to the justice system. When it can't keep up with the demand, the system gets clogged and justice is delayed — even jeopardized.
The 2007 Legislature should pass Parker's bill and give the crime lab the resources it needs.