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Both chambers of the Legislature approved the additional analysts as part of a bill that would make adjustments to the current two-year budget that ends June 30. The approval sends the bill to Gov. Jim Doyle, who has promised to sign it.
Lawmakers passed the bill with little debate and only praise for the portion of the measure that would add the analysts. It passed the Senate 24-9 and cleared the Assembly 85-14.
Local police and the Justice Department have been battling backlogs of evidence awaiting DNA tests at the state crime labs for years. The backlog stood at nearly 1,900 cases as of Feb. 13, according to data from Assembly Republicans and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen.
Delays in testing can handcuff investigations and leave criminals free on the street.
“We recognize the importance of making sure we have swift justice,” Assembly Speaker Mike Huebsch, R-West Salem, said at a news conference before the Assembly took the floor.
The bill gives the Justice Department the authority to hire 31 new analysts as soon as it becomes law. It provides about $96,000 to cover training and salaries for analysts hired before the end of the fiscal year June 30.
Full funding for all 31 analysts, about $7.7 million, would have to come in the next state budget.
That spending plan covers the two years that begin July 1, but it’s unlikely the Legislature will complete negotiations by then — Republicans control the Assembly and Democrats control the Senate.
If the budget isn’t passed by July 1, state agencies would continue operations under the 2006-07 budget plan. Money for the analysts would have to come from there until the new budget is adopted.
Van Hollen, a Republican, has promised to eliminate the backlog by 2010 if he can get his 31 new people hired by July 1. The Justice Department also will look to improve efficiencies at the crime labs and work with police so they send in a limited amount of evidence, he added.
“There is nothing that the Department of Justice and the state of Wisconsin can do to help law enforcement make our community safer than to get rid of the backlog at the crime lab and to turn around forensic evidence to them faster,” Van Hollen said. “I set that out as my number one mission.”
