Crime lab grapples with smaller budget in new home

After 27 years inside a cramped white house on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University, the Southeast Missouri Regional Crime Laboratory has a new home and is poised to investigate the region's crimes for years to come.

The lab was moved in August to a former warehouse owned by Southeast Missouri State University at 122 S. Ellis. The lab now occupies about 8,000 square feet at the new location, which was dedicated Sept. 13.

The lab serves 90 different law enforcement agencies and takes in more than 300 new cases a month, more than half of which concern drugs.

Part of the building was remodeled thanks to $1.98 million grant from the National Institute of Justice, an arm of the Department of Justice dealing with forensic sciences. Seven weeks after the dedication, former lab director Dr. Robert Briner retired after 32 years at the helm. Briner was replaced by interim director Pam Johnson.

Like many state-funded facilities, the lab endured budget cuts in 2003. The lab's $325,000 budget was cut by $40,000 at the end of the last legislative session. Through attrition, staff size fell from six to two and a half positions. Those include Johnson's slot, a serologist and a firearms inspector trainee. Support staff include a receptionist and a firearms consultant.

The budget is smaller this year. Much of it is swallowed up by the lab's increased utility expenses. There are now several more rooms to cool, heat and light. At the old location, an average monthly utility bill was $400 to $500. Now it's closer to $4,000 a month.

'It's a challenge'Together with a smaller budget, the lab is essentially running on $100,000 less per year.

"It's a challenge," Johnson said.

This is the third in a five-year plan in which city and county governments are helping cover the costs of renovating the lab's new home.

"We'd been hoping not to have to go back to them and ask for more funds until they'd fulfilled those obligations," Johnson said.

Because local agencies rely so heavily on the lab, seeing it struggle with state budget cuts is disheartening, , said Lt. David James, chief of detectives at the Cape Girardaeau County Sheriff's Department. James is also commander of the Cape Girardeau-Bollinger County Major Case Squad.

'It's a must-have'"Without the crime lab, law enforcement in Southeast Missouri would suffer tremendously," he said. "It's a must-have."

Having a local lab means faster test results in crucial cases, he said.

"Obviously, it's important to law enforcement in Southeast Missouri, not just Cape Girardeau County, because of the quickness of turnaround," James said. "If you have to send it up to the highway patrol's lab or anyone else, it can take months."

The value of having a crime lab in close proximity was evident Jan. 1, after a shooting outside the Taste after-hours club at 402 Good Hope Street in Cape Girardeau, Johnson said.

"I came New Year's Day with firearms inspector Dave Warren to examine bullets from the shooting so we could tell investigators what kind of weapon they needed to look for," she said.

While firearm and fingerprint cases take about a month to process in the lab, working drug cases has slowed down considerably, Johnson said. The loss of staff and the complications of moving are blamed. She only recently began working on drug evidence from September's cases.

"Before we moved, our average turnaround time on a drug case was four to 6 weeks," she said. "Now it's more like four to five months. ... I've got extra space, but without extra people you do good just to keep up."

mwells@semissourian.com

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