UPDATE-KIRKSVILLE, MO. -- UPDATED with statement by St. Rep. Zachary Wyatt
Thursday, April 28, 2011:
Rep. Zachary Wyatt Applauds Truman State University for Smart Budgeting Decisions
Jefferson City, MO – Rep. Zachary Wyatt, R-Green Castle, is very pleased with budget decisions that have been made by Truman State University that have caused little impact for students. The University is located in the 2nd district, and received a smaller proposed budget cut than expected for the 2012 fiscal year. Decisions made by the University have been beneficial to current and future students.
“I am proud to have such a fiscally responsible and academically sound University in the Second House District,” Rep. Wyatt said. “Truman State provides a quality education within budget to its students every year.”
The staff of Truman State University has been working to reduce spending in a manner that minimally affects the academic integrity of Truman State University students. Because of this, some community programs that Truman has been subsidizing for years must be closed. The University is still working closely with the northeast Missouri community in order to obtain grants for projects such as a crime lab for the city of Kirksville to be utilized by the surrounding area for simple forensics.
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Another community service offered by Truman State University falls victim to budget cuts.
Truman recently announced it will stop offering recycling services to the community, and now the Northeast Missouri Criminalistics Laboratory in Barnett Hall will close June 30.
The crime lab is getting the ax because it needs new instruments, which at about $100,000, the school cannot afford.
Fortunately, no jobs will be lost, but students pursuing a career in forensics will no longer be able to get experience in the lab.
Law enforcement agencies will no longer be able to utilize the crime lab either.
“We have supported local law enforcement throughout Northeast Missouri since 1973. The primary things that we do are doing chemistry and fingerprinting work and so those agencies will now have to take that to the highway patrol's lab,” said Martin Jane, Laboratory Director.
The highway patrol's crime lab is busy, meaning turnaround times will be much longer.
“The closing of the Truman crime lab is going to slow down our caseload. We relied heavily on Truman and they did a wonderful job of getting test results back to us pretty quickly. Now we're going to go from six weeks to six, eight, nine months for turnaround, and that will slow down our system even more,” said Adair County Prosecutor Matt Wilson.
The lab will stop collecting evidence to analyze at the end of April.
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Truman State University will be closing the crime lab on campus effective June 30. Truman officials blame state budget cuts on the closure, marking the second service of the university to be closed due to budget cuts.
Earlier the school announced the recycling center would no longer accept recycling materials from the public.
The crime lab had provided free forensic services to law enforcement across northeast Missouri since it opened back in 1973.
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