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Minnesota public-safety agencies ask lawmakers for roughly $169 million for new BCA labs and consolidated State Patrol headquarters

5101107 · February 11, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

The Department of Public Safety asked the Capital Investment Committee on Feb. 11 for funding to build a new Southern Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) regional office and laboratory in Mankato, expand the Bemidji regional lab, and build a consolidated Minnesota State Patrol headquarters.

The Department of Public Safety asked the Capital Investment Committee on Feb. 11 for funding to build a new Southern Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) regional office and laboratory in Mankato, expand the Bemidji regional lab, and build a consolidated Minnesota State Patrol headquarters. The combined requests presented at Tuesday's hearing total about $169.3 million: $68.1 million for the Mankato BCA facility (an increase of about $20 million from an earlier $48 million request), roughly $4.2 million for Bemidji land acquisition and related work, and $97 million for State Patrol construction (with prior design funding of $22.5 million already provided).

The projects aim to reduce evidence turnaround times, add regional training capacity, create secure evidence-storage locations, and consolidate six State Patrol metro sites under a single modern headquarters. “Building a new lab at Mankato will help evidence turnaround throughout Minnesota,” Commissioner Bob Jacobson said as he introduced the agency’s capital proposals.

Why it matters: BCA officials told the committee laboratory demand has risen sharply over the last decade, driven by required sexual-assault kit testing, a large increase in digital evidence work, more drug evidence (including methamphetamine and opioids), and a surge in internet-crime reports.…

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