Former opponents Josh Kaul, Eric Toney make joint plea for state crime labs funding. Here is their case to lawmakers.

MADISON – After running against each other last fall, Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul and Republican Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney joined forces Tuesday to call on state lawmakers to increase state budget funding for Wisconsin’s crime evidence labs.

Kaul and Toney’s appearance was a stark shift from heated rhetoric on the campaign trail last year, where Toney described Kaul's handling of the crime labs as an "abysmal failure." But the two agreed Tuesday that the state’s current system for processing forensic evidence in criminal cases needs more staff to keep up with increasingly complex testing procedures.

“Ensuring that we have our team fully staffed so that we're not taking the analysts away from conducting their analysis helps ensure we can continue turning around these submissions efficiently,” Kaul said. “These are critical investments.”

More: Josh Kaul defeats Eric Toney to win second term as Wisconsin attorney general in 2022 midterm election

What resources do Kaul and Toney say are needed?

Kaul and Toney, along with a coalition of public defenders, state prosecutors and district attorneys, want the Republican-controlled Legislature to fully fund a $2.27 million “Crime Fighting Budget” request for the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratories during the 2023-25 biennium.

The Department of Justice request proposes 10 new DNA analysts, four additional toxicologists and two additional crime scene response unit members requested by local law enforcement agencies to alleviate staff shortages and backlogs in evidence processing.

“There's no doubt that the crime labs in Wisconsin are critical to public safety as a prosecutor,” Toney said. “We use those resources across the state on everything from first-offense drunk driving to intentional homicides to drug overdoses.”

What is the impact of a lab backlog?

Median processing times for DNA samples at the lab increased 77% between 2019 and 2021, according to figures from the labs’ latest annual report in 2021. The longer processing times occurred as the lab took fewer cases each year — 3,612 in 2021, down from 4,400 in 2019.

Controlled substance samples and toxicology cases also saw processing times tick up during the three-year period, although firearms cases were processed more quickly than in previous years.

Kaul said in 2022 that the pandemic was one of the main reasons for the increase in processing times. And while trendlines at the state’s three crime labs in Madison, Milwaukee and Wausau appeared to show progress, updated numbers won’t be available until the next annual report is released in “a few months," the attorney general said Tuesday.

What’s being done to lower processing times?

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers sent the DOJ more than $12 million in federal coronavirus relief aid last year to help state crime labs catch up on cases, according to Evers spokeswomen Britt Cudaback. A portion of the money was used to outsource some of the state’s work to private labs, Kaul said last year.

But the lab’s biggest challenge has been adding additional staff. Kaul pressed state lawmakers for 19 new analysts in the 2019-2021 biennial budget but ended up with just over seven after cuts from Evers and the Legislature’s Republican-controlled finance committee.

Kaul hosted lawmakers for tours of state crime labs in March to build support for new positions. But the DOJ’s request for the 2023-25 budget took a hit earlier this year when Evers released his executive budget, which fulfilled just one-third of the $2.27 million the DOJ requested. Evers’ proposal also cut seven of the proposed crime lab analyst positions and delayed the implementation of five positions to the 2025 fiscal year.

The crime lab budget was part of a wider effort by the governor’s office to “balance resource and staffing needs across all areas of government,” Cudaback said in an email Tuesday.

Kaul said Tuesday he has gotten a “positive response” in conversations with members of the Legislature’s finance committee regarding the crime labs' funding priorities.

“I think there's a clear recognition about the importance of investing in the system as a whole,” he added.

Committee members will take up the state crime labs budget request along with other DOJ items on Thursday.

Tyler Katzenberger can be reached at tkatzenberger@gannett.com.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Josh Kaul, Eric Toney make joint plea for state crime labs funding