The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Lorain County Crime Lab seeks voter approval of levy
Voters on Nov. 4 will be asked to weigh in on a levy that would generate funds to help sustain the county’s Crime Lab and return “convenient and efficient” testing to Lorain County.
The county will seek new money from voters through the passage of Issue 7 — a .08-mill levy projected to raise $495,759 annually, during its five-year term, according to Lisa Hobart, the commissioners’ budget director.
The levy would cost $2.80 annually per $100,000 in residential valuation.
The county Crime Lab currently operates using money obtained through a continuing levy passed in the early 1980s which is combined with the Lorain County Drug Task Force, Lorain County Administrator James Cordes said.
One-third of that levy money is used for the operational costs of the crime lab and the remaining revenue goes towards operating the drug task force.
Of that levy money, $153,701 goes to the crime lab annually, but the additional levy is needed to offset increasing costs, Cordes said.
The Crime Lab operations’ cost in 2013 was $249,340, according to Hobart.
With the money generated from the potential passing of the levy, Cordes said the Crime Lab will continue with its current services and look to return ones once used to serve local law enforcement agencies — Lorain County Children Services, Domestic Relations Court, Lorain County Juvenile Facilities and Lorain County Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services. It also would allow officials to improve the turnaround time on results.
“This is a matter of convenience and efficiency,” Crime Lab Director Emmanuel de Leon said.
De Leon said with the passage of the levy, he would push for the return of blood analysis and fingerprint testing to the lab. That decision, he says, would be up to county commissioners.
Lack of funding resulted in the removal of the instrumentation required to perform those tests and has shown an increase in the time it takes for those results to return to the county.
By returning equipment to conduct blood testing to the Crime Lab, and by handling its own volume of specimens, de Leon says verbal and certified reports can be turned around within an hour.
Fingerprint testing — which also was eliminated due to lack of funding — would be brought back, de Leon said. Currently, print analysis is done by the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation in Richfield.
Voters rejected the .08-mill levy in the May 6 primary election, but Cordes said the county will continue to limp along until it is able to make the right case to the citizenry.
Cordes pointed to the recent heroin outbreak which continues to grow throughout the community and has become an epidemic.
“We need this lab to combat the epidemic drug problem in Lorain County,” he said. “Frankly, it doesn’t get enough attention.”
Through the passage of the levy, the Crime Lab will increase its funding, allowing it to become better equipped to tackle the issue of heroin distribution and addiction. The lab would improve the time it takes for drug analysis and sample analysis to be concluded, which would in turn help prosecutors build their cases more timely, de Leon said.
“It would really allow us to provide services and rapid turnaround for the courts and law enforcement in Lorain County,” Cordes said. “We operate in the ninth largest county in the state of Ohio and lying next to a major metropolitan area that brings problems our way, occasionally.”