Idaho State Police want to speed up DNA tests. The state just broke ground on a new forensic lab.

State law enforcement officials broke ground Tuesday on a new forensics laboratory that they hope will improve the state’s already-fast processing of criminal forensics evidence. 

And they hope that the $29 million forensics laboratory, based at Idaho State Police’s Headquarters in Meridian, will streamline lab services that are tapped by local and county law enforcement agencies across the state.

Moments before officials ceremonially lifted dirt with shovels, Gov. Brad Little talked about the need for the facility in a state that has grown at a record pace in recent years.

“The people that have been here expect a safe environment. And you can’t have effective law enforcement if you don’t have the tools that they need to do their job,” Little said.

Officials expect construction on the lab to finish in January 2028. 

The new facility will help aid DNA testing, including advancements to establish Whole Genome Sequencing; examining latent prints; forensics for digital devices; and house technology to help solve gun-related crimes through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, officials say. 

Idaho State Police’s director, Col. Bill Gardiner, praised the agency’s forensics unit as world-renowned and says the laboratory’s construction shows the state’s investment in public safety.

“It really is a reflection of those victims and them seeking justice, and those victims seeking closure,” he said before the groundbreaking ceremony. “And that’s really what this lab is there to do: provide that evidence in order to accomplish that.”

Right now, Idaho State Police have an average turnaround time for DNA tests of around 30 to 45 days, said Matthew Gamette, the agency’s laboratory system director. While he said that’s already good, law enforcement hopes to routinely provide results within a matter of hours. 

He praised the agency’s laboratory as efficient already. But he said it’s at its limit. 

“We have no more space to put scientists in a desk to work. And we have no space to be able to give them analytical space to spread out the evidence and do the analysis. And we have no place to put instruments,” he said in an interview. 

How is Idaho State Police’s new forensics laboratory funded? 

The facility’s construction is funded through federal grants made available by the American Rescue Plan Act, a massive COVID-era stimulus fund signed into law by former U.S. President Joe Biden in 2021. 

Officials weren’t able to immediately say when the Legislature and the governor approved the funding. But in an interview, Little said he remembers talk of wanting to build the facility as long as he’s been governor — dating back for seven or eight years. 

Originally, Little said, there was a request to fund the facility’s construction through the state’s Permanent Building Fund. But officials later shifted to tapping the federal grant funds, which he says he and state lawmakers sought to only use for one-time purposes instead of ongoing needs. 

That was in the hopes of not having a “budget hole” when the federal funds dried up, he said. 

“This is the exact opposite,” Little said of tapping federal funds to build the new facility. “We’re going to be faster. We’re going to be more efficient.”

Idaho State Police officials characterize the lab’s construction as the first phase of its forensic services expansion. The next step, Gardiner said in an interview, is to shift all laboratory services into that new building. 

He compared forensic scientists’ current workspace to “a family of four living in, like, a 500-square-foot apartment.”

“It is crammed. It is small. In fact, you have some scientists who have lab equipment on the table. They work through a case, and then they go to the next case and they have to remove that equipment, set it down, get different equipment to run a different test, set it up,” Gardiner said. “You can imagine the time that that takes in order to do that.”

Expanding into the new facility will, he said, let law enforcement spread everything out to avoid needing to stow equipment when switching between tasks. 

Funding for the next phase of the expansion hasn’t been identified. Gardiner said once the facility is built in two years, the agency will talk with the governor’s office and legislators to carve a path forward.