DPS to charge law enforcement agencies for crime lab services

The Texas Department of Public Safety announced on Thursday that it would begin charging law enforcement agencies for using certain crime laboratory services starting on Sept. 1.

According to DPS, the Texas Legislature provided the DPS lab system with $63 million for the 2018-19 fiscal year, and requires up to $11.5 million be charged and collected to make up the balance of the total authorized budget of $74.5 million. The DPS lab system was allocated $74.7 million in the previous two-year budget.

“In accordance with this legislative directive, DPS will charge for forensic analysis performed on controlled substances, toxicology, DNA evidence submissions and biological specimens to detect the presence of alcohol,” DPS Director Steven McCraw said in a statement on Thursday.

“DPS also plans to utilize state appropriations to provide each local criminal justice agency with a voucher, the balance of which can be used by the agency to acquire the DPS forensic analysis services of their choice,” McCraw said.

The agency said DPS will present the final cost model, policy and implementation guide on its website this summer, along with the value of the voucher.

Thursday’s announcement included preliminary pricing for the following services:

Alcohol analysis: $75 per sample

Controlled substance analysis: $75 per sample

Quantitative analysis of controlled substance: $150 per sample

DNA analysis: $550 per case

Toxicology analysis: $150 per case

Shannon Edmonds, Texas District and County Attorneys Association director of governmental relations, said the new fees are going to cause problems for Texas law enforcement agencies that are busy building their own budgets.

“Right now local governments are doing all of their budgeting for the next year, because many of their fiscal years begin in September or October,” Edmonds said. “I can guarantee you that no law enforcement agencies or prosecutors or related groups knew this was coming.”

Edmonds said that DPS has had a statutory authority to charge agencies for the tests in the past, but they haven’t charged for the services before. He said the fees were outlined in a rider filed with the DPS budget during the 85th Legislature.

“As far as we can tell, these riders were put in without any notice or input (from) anyone outside of DPS or the budget board, and I predict that some law enforcement officials are going to hit the roof when they find out about this,” he said.