Local & State Headlines

Crime lab in distress

• If state-mandated cuts continue through the next fiscal year, the Moultrie crime lab will close, state officials say.

J.D. Sumner

SYLVESTER — Local criminal investigators are bracing as state leaders try to comply with Governor Sonny Perdue’s 6 percent, across-the-board budget cuts; a move that some say threatens the security of the southern part of the state at the expense of the Metro Atlanta area.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has to cut its budget by 6 percent along with other state agencies under Perdue’s directive, due to sharp revenue shortages in a slowing national economy.

Initially, the agency was able to trim some of its budget by choosing not to fill a vacancy left by departing medical examiners in the Bureau’s crime labs in Moultrie and Summerville.

Now, with a statewide budget shortfall looming, it looks like the GBI may have to close the Moultrie office altogether along with a forensics lab in Columbus, officials say.

GBI Director Vernon Keenan told the Associated Press that cuts are also likely at the bureau’s regional offices and will most likely cause a backlog in cases.

Southwestern Judicial District Attorney Cecilia Cooper said she fears that any reduction in services will force delays in the prosecution of cases and cut the Bureau’s effectiveness in investigating crime in rural parts of Southwest Georgia.

“These cuts are very frustrating,” Cooper said. “They fly in the face of practical thought. Everyone knows that crime is on the rise, and yet the GBI and other law enforcement agencies are having to cut back. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s going to devastate us in this circuit.”

Currently, Cooper says it takes about 60 days to get drug reports back from the forensics lab in Columbus and nearly four months to get more complicated evidence like toxicology back for an investigation. If the cuts go through, she says she fears that those times could easily double.

And Cooper says it’s the residents of Southwest Georgia who will end up suffering the most.

“With these cuts that the GBI is looking at, they’re not closing the labs in Metro Atlanta, they’re closing the ones in the most rural parts of the state, and that puts a bind on the agents and investigators to take evidence and bodies to Atlanta for autopsy,” she said.

The GBI is anticipating cutting $4.2 million by closing the medical examiner’s offices in the two crime labs this fiscal year. If the six percent cuts remain effective as anticipated, the Moultrie and Columbus labs will close July 1, 2009, sparing another $4.1 million.

Some employees of the lab will be transferred to Atlanta, others will be laid off, Keenan said.

The GBI’s other regional labs — in Macon, Savannah, Augusta, Summerville and Cleveland — will remain open.

“We’ve done what all the other agencies have done in regards to a hiring freeze, no purchase of vehicles, and limited travel,” GBI Spokesperson John Bankhead said.

The GBI is also anticipating cuts to the personnel who enter criminal history data into state computers, saving $638,000.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.