By Matthew S.L. Cate
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Opening up another batch of recovery cash, the federal government has offered Arkansas nearly $14 million to help buy new gear, hire more police officers, and, just maybe, put a new robot in the state Crime Laboratory.
The payout, announced by the Department of Justice on Thursday, is just one piece of the roughly $4 billion in crimefighting cash to come from the stimulus program.
Of the $13.7 million announced on Thursday, state officials must split off more than half for local agencies. Nonprofit groups that offer approved crime-prevention or drug-treatment programs can also apply for the money. That’s in addition to $8.4 million that local agencies will be awarded later.
Though their plans must be approved before any money is actually spent, the agencies have wide latitude on how they can use it. It’s available for hightech gadgets and low-tech supplies, cruisers and motorcycles, research and planning, and new officers or other personnel. Only a few items are off-limits without earlier approval from the federal government: “luxury items” and real estate.
Pulaski County and its municipal agencies, which stand to get the state’s largest local-government award when that batch of money is allocated later this spring, plan to spend their $2.9 million predominantly for updated record-keeping systems, said Little Rock grants manager Caran Curry.
At the state Crime Lab, the extra pot of money could mean a high-tech route to cutting the roughly two- to three-month wait before a tissue or blood sample can undergo toxicology tests.
Lab Director Kermit Channell said he’s hoping for $350,000 in all, with about one-third of that budgeted for a robot that could do much of the lab’s toxicology sampling.
The lab already uses a similar contraption for DNA testing, he said, and an extra set of steady, programmable hands would free up analysts to get to other chores.
“You don’t have to baby-sit the machine,” Channell said. “During that hour, I can be interpreting data.” The robot could help drop the backlog to closer to 30 days, he said.
The rest of the $350,000 Channell is seeking would be used for other new hardware.
“I think we stand a good chance,” he said.
Copyright 2009 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette