Last year, the mean annual salary for a forensic science technician was $62,490, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the state of Kentucky, however, it is much, much lower.
The starting salary for lab technicians in the Kentucky State Police (KSP) Forensic Laboratory is $32,000, leaving the department with a 35 percent turnover rate over a 5-year period.
“We are paying them to do this work that is exceedingly dangerous, but we are the lowest in the country. No one pays their lab technicians lower than [Kentucky] does,” Whitney Westerfield told CBS affiliate WKYT.
Westerfield, a Kentucky State Senator (R-Hopkinsville), recently discovered the salary discrepancy during a subcommittee meeting and has been making light of it through his social media channels and mainstream media. The problem, however, is not new.
In March 2018, Laura Sudkamp, assistant director of the KSP Central Laboratory in Frankfort told assembled lawmakers that the Kentucky State Police may not be able to hire or retain enough technicians to keep up with surging workloads since salaries in the state’s six crime labs were “woefully inadequate.” For example, a forensic scientist who was working at KSP for 14 years had a salary of only $48,500. At the time, Sudkamp asked for an extra $2 million to raise salaries, but it did not make it into the 2019 state budget.
For reference, WKYT reports neighboring states’ starting forensic lab technician salaries as follows:
- Ohio: $56,472
- West Virginia: $45,050
- Tennessee: $45,324
Sudkamp was correct in her prediction of losing technicians. Compared with 2017, this year KSP has 24 percent less forensic lab technicians and 75 percent more cases per analyst. This has led to a backlog of up to 10 months in some cases.
"We just need to find the money. That's the bottom line," said Westerfield.
Nationwide backlog woes
Although the impetus—salaries in Kentucky’s case—is different, KSP is certainly not in the minority when it comes to case backlog. There is a nationwide backlog among forensic crime labs. It is a problem currently without a solution, although the United States has given almost $1 billion to state and local crime labs since 2004 in an attempt remedy the situation, according to The Washington Post. While the federal government remains dedicated, a March 2019 report from the Government Accountability Office characterized eliminating the backlog as “unachievable.”
“[National Institute of Justice (NIJ)] reported that eliminating the nationwide backlog is not a program goal. Officials stated they believe the goal of eliminating backlogs is unachievable in the foreseeable future because increases in demand for DNA analysis are driven by factors outside of NIJ’s control. Thus, officials said they are not comfortable setting an unachievable goal and reporting data related to that goal that may be misinterpreted,” reads the report.