New budget provides 19 percent increase for forensics

PHILLIP RAWLS

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Gov. Bob Riley signed a General Fund budget Tuesday that will help the state Department of Forensic Sciences look a little more like "CSI," the TV series where crime scene investigations never have to wait on laboratory backlogs.

The new General Fund budget, which takes effect Oct. 1, will increase the forensics appropriation by $2.1 million, or 19 percent, to $13.1 million. Another $8.7 million from other sources, such as criminal case fines and federal funds, will boost the department's total budget to a record $21.9 million.

Deputy Director Brent Wheeler said the increase will "help us quite a bit" by providing more staff and equipment, but it won't create a department that operates like "Quincy" or "CSI."

"It is sensationalized and dramatized. It's a little bit stretched about what can be done," Wheeler said Tuesday.

In the real world of the Department of Forensic Sciences, there's a backlog of 1,300 DNA cases - about five to six months of work. And drug cases are coming in faster than they can be worked - 2,900 in last month and 2,500 out.

The budget increase, as well as a new lab that recently opened in Hoover and another scheduled to open next year in Montgomery, will help ease the backlog, but needs that developed over several years will take time to erase, Wheeler said.

"It's not something you can do in one year," he said.

But the budget increase, along with back-to-back pay annual raises for state workers totaling 11 percent, will boost morale in the department where workers are under pressure to investigate evidence as fast as possible, he said.

The budget increase comes from a new $1.65 billion General Fund budget that reflects an upturn in the state's economy. It provides increases to many non-education agencies that suffered through level funding or budget cuts of as much as 25 percent in 2004 and 2005.

It provides an increase of $9.6 million, or 19 percent, to the state Department of Public Safety, which will help hire and train 100 new state troopers, Riley said.

For district attorneys, the appropriation goes up $4.5 million, or 15 percent, to $34.2 million.

Riley, a Republican, and Democratic legislative leaders worked closely together to write the budget. And in this election year, they got it done before the last day of the legislative session on April 17.

"If you look at where we were three or four years ago and where we are today, by working together in a bipartisan effort we really have made some remarkable progress," Riley said at the budget-signing ceremony.

On Wednesday, Riley plans to sign a bill passed by the Legislature to raise the threshold where Alabama workers start paying income tax and end Alabama's distinction of being the only state in the country that levies an income tax on a family of four making less than $10,000 annually.

Then on April 17, Riley will sign a bill recognizing two crimes, instead of one, when a pregnant woman is assaulted or killed, his spokesman said.