Senate to vote on crime lab funding

An appropriations bill that secures $1.5 million for a lab in Springfield is pending Senate approval after passing the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday in the Commerce, State, Justice Appropriations Conference Report for 2006.

It’s a start, said Deputy City Manager Bob Cumley, but the crime lab is not a reality yet. At least $3 million in additional funding is needed to renovate the 72,000-square-foot building that would house the lab.

“While the (sales) tax didn’t pass, we never heard anybody say that we didn’t need a crime lab,” he said. “They just told us they didn’t want to pay more taxes for it.”

The closest lab to Springfield is in Jefferson City, where cases are often backlogged for up to a year.

The city will provide space for the lab in the former L.E. Cox Modern Tractor building, 440 E. Tampa St., which was acquired in 2004. The training center is partially funded by $1.4 million from the same appropriations bill in 2002.

Cumley said he and other city officials will spend the next few weeks exploring other avenues for funding the building’s renovations.

“We’re going to see if there are options available to us, because our goal is to get the crime lab in Springfield, even if it’s limited size,” he said. “I don’t know whether we can or not, but we’re going to try.”