Crime lab levy support urged

Commissioners say passage will improve services offered

Lorain County commissioners are asking for the community’s support for a levy that would improve services offered by the county’s crime lab.

The five-year 0.08-mill levy would raise $594,090 a year and would cost the owner of a home valued at $100,000 an additional $2.80 a year in property taxes, according to Lorain County Auditor Craig Snodgrass.

Lorain County Administrator Jim Cordes said during the commissioners’ Oct. 9 meeting the current facility in the basement of the Lorain County Administration Building in Elyria is insufficient for local needs.

“We need a better facility, but we’re going to make it work as long as we need,” Cordes said. “We need to work with the public to help us to establish a permanent home for which the lab has really never had since the early 90s.”

The Lorain County Crime Lab tests suspected drugs seized by local police departments and also is responsible for urinalysis screenings and fingerprinting for minors.

Due to the location of the present facility, Cordes said staffers are unable to obtain proper certification which would allow Lorain County to apply for state and federal funding.

The crime lab was located at Lorain County Community College, but Cordes noted it closed due to a lack of funding, resulting in the move to its current home.

“So, we need to get some permanence to it and utilize it fully the best we can,” he said. “We’ve established better relationships.

“The work is really, really increasing so significantly, with probation and the courts and the police

“It’s about having the ability to do the job, do it in a correct timeline and produce the results we need so that we’re making progress in the criminal arena, like having our support system back in our crime lab.” — Lorain County Commissioner Sharon Sweda

departments. And we’re doing a lot more with the fingerprinting and the analysis down there. More is needed, but we can’t do much more with what we have.”

The levy would go a long way in addressing the county’s needs, Cordes said.

If the levy passes, the county would move the crime lab to a facility on Broad Street in Elyria.

Commissioner Sharon Sweda emphasized the importance of supporting law enforcement with the right resources and infrastructure.

“We have such high expectations of our law enforcement,” Sweda said. “And those expectations have to be fueled with the tools and the proper methods of being able to check their safety out in the field, when they’re back in the labs as well as the fact that it’s not simply about where they’re located.

“It’s about having the ability to do the job, do it in a correct timeline and produce the results we need so that we’re making progress in the criminal arena, like having our support system back in our crime lab.”