L.A. County sheriff says budget cuts have slowed agency’s analysis of drug evidence
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca says budget cuts have significantly slowed his agency’s analysis of narcotics evidence.
The average backlog in 2009, before the cuts, was 256 cases. That number has more than tripled, swelling to 920 unanalyzed cases, according to department records.
Baca recently reduced overtime expenses in an effort to compensate for a $128-million budget cut. News of the narcotics backlog comes weeks after The Times detailed significant delays in the department’s collection and analysis of fingerprint evidence. The department also recently drew attention when it released some 200 inmates from the L.A. County jail system early as part of an attempt to reduce costs.
The narcotics testing backlog was disclosed in a report Baca submitted to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last week. The report did not provide a detailed accounting of the backlog, but a sheriff’s spokesman said that cases investigated by the department have not been affected by the cuts. Instead, the brunt of the problem seems to have been push onto other law enforcement agencies in the county that outsource their narcotics analysis to the Sheriff’s Department, authorities said.
