Douglas County Citizens Paying for State-wide Forensic Analysis

Is it just me, or if a lab is going to charge to ana­lyze evi­dence that isn’t col­lected within it’s juris­dic­tion, shouldn’t they charge enough to cover the costs to ana­lyze it?

What we have in Nebraska is tan­ta­mount to foren­sic welfare.

The Douglas County crime lab is a bar­gain for law enforce­ment agen­cies through­out the region.

But it’s a bar­gain sub­si­dized by local taxpayers.

The lab’s rep­u­ta­tion for pro­vid­ing qual­ity work at a good price brought in clients from sur­round­ing coun­ties and as far away as Chadron, Neb., and Waterloo, Iowa.

In fact, most of its cases in the past five years were from out­side Douglas County, a World-Herald review found.

Now the lab’s qual­ity is under scrutiny after the direc­tor tam­pered with evi­dence in a regional mur­der case.

And the out­side work brings in only a frac­tion of what the lab costs to run. From 2005 through 2009, lab expenses aver­aged $840,000 a year while the lab took in an aver­age $95,000 a year from contracts.

Now the county plans to spend $4 mil­lion in drug for­fei­ture funds to ren­o­vate and expand the crime lab.

Some Douglas County Board mem­bers have ques­tioned the wis­dom of expand­ing the lab, given con­cerns about its integrity, and say the county shouldn’t sub­si­dize other agencies.

“Let’s just say they would never do busi­ness that way at the Nebraska Furniture Mart,” said board mem­ber Mike Boyle.

Examples of fees the lab charges, com­pared to Bexar County in Texas.

Selling itself short
A sam­pling of foren­sic ser­vices fees charged by Douglas County CSI and the Bexar County crime lab in San Antonio.

Courtroom tes­ti­mony:
Douglas County — $50 per hour (recently raised from about $20 per day plus mileage)
Bexas County — $110 per hour

Drug test­ing:
Douglas County — $30 or $80, depend­ing on sam­ple type
Bexas County — $37 or $160, depend­ing on sam­ple type

Crime scene, evi­dence pro­cess­ing:
Douglas County — $50 per hour, per per­son (until recently, $50 per hour total)
Bexas County — $110 per hour, per person

Crime lab pro­cess­ing:
Douglas County — $50 per hour, per per­son
Bexas County — $75 per hour, per person

Evidence pro­cess­ing:
Douglas County — No fee to reg­is­ter (doesn’t ship evi­dence)
Bexas County — $20 per case to reg­is­ter, $37 per case for shipping/handling

Copy of reports:
Douglas County — No fee
Bexar County — $20 to $42

Read the entire arti­cle on Omaha.com.