Sedgwick County staff outline $20.5 million plan to expand Regional Forensic Science Center; commissioners raise site and safety questions

Shelley Stedman, director of the Regional Forensic Science Center, and Andrew Dilts, director of Facilities, told the Sedgwick County commission at a July 15 staff meeting that the county needs a new laboratory addition and renovations to resolve equipment, space and utility constraints at the existing forensic facility.

Stedman said the center operates two distinct forensic functions — forensic laboratory testing (DNA, toxicology, firearms, drug identification) and medicolegal death investigation — under one roof and that the facility’s current footprint prevents the center from expanding services or installing new instrumentation. "We have no electrical capacity for new instrumentation in the legacy building," Stedman said, and described operational inefficiencies such as limited exhaust hoods, dispersed specimen storage, and insufficient office space for staff and trainees.

The center proposes a two-step Capital Improvement Program request: a 2026 ask of about $1,200,000 for architectural and engineering design and a 2027 request of roughly $19,000,000 for construction and remodeling. Dilts said the 2027 figure includes about $4,000,000 to remodel the existing building and about $16,000,000 for the new addition, roughly $2,000,000 for owner costs (contingency, geotechnical work, signage, IT/networking) and about $830,000 for furniture, fixtures and equipment and specialized calibration costs.

Why it matters: Stedman said inefficiencies at the center slow law enforcement investigations and court processes, and can reduce public-health surveillance. She described a recent data-sharing project tied to an OD2A grant and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that supplies drug-identification results to public-health harm-reduction programs. "When the forensic science center isn't efficient, law enforcement can't be efficient because they can't progress their investigation. When the forensic science center isn't efficient, the courts can't be efficient because they can't charge cases," Stedman said.

Facility and site details: The existing facility consists of a 24,000-square-foot legacy building (built in 1995) and a 7,500-square-foot annex added in 2010. Staff identified a 24,600-square-foot footprint in a nearby gated health-department parking area as the most practical location for the addition; the health department’s operations sit adjacent to the proposed site. Dilts said building on county-owned land across the street from the current facility would allow a campus-style expansion and preserve the option to grow again in future decades. The presenters said the plan would colocate DNA, firearms, drug-ID laboratories, evidence receiving and quality assurance in the new addition and leave toxicology, coroner/autopsy services and some administrative offices in the legacy and annex buildings.

Costs and timeline: Dilts said the county previously approved a different expansion in the 2023 CIP with a budget of just over $7,000,000 but that acquiring required adjacent property proved infeasible. The new proposal would ask for design funding in 2026 and construction/remodeling funding in 2027. Dilts said the plan was sized to meet needs for roughly the next 20 years.

Commissioners’ concerns and staff responses: Several commissioners agreed the center has unmet needs but expressed reservations about the chosen site and the operational impacts of having some functions in separate buildings. Commissioner Howe said he was "not convinced this is the right location" and worried about employee safety and the separation of services. Stedman acknowledged the separation and said the center has implemented a laboratory information management system (LIMS) and plans secure procedures for transporting specimens and samples between buildings; she called the separation a workable solution and emphasized that without additional space the center cannot advance instrumentation or staffing.

Stedman also warned that relocation and phased remodeling would cause temporary service disruptions during the move. "I'm not gonna be so brazen as to stand up here and tell you that we are magically gonna alleviate all of our (backlog) when we get this building," she said, acknowledging there may be service delays during relocation but arguing the plan is the only path to longer-term improvement.

Next steps: Staff said the proposal will be discussed in the county’s CIP budget hearings (noted in the meeting as scheduled for Aug. 20) and that formal funding requests would follow the county's CIP calendar.

Background and context: Stedman described operational constraints including limited electrical capacity (forcing choices about which equipment can run on backup power), only two extraction fume hoods in the tox lab for seven staff, storage of pathology specimens across multiple locations and nonindustrial refrigeration for some samples. She described the center’s unique co-location of forensic laboratory and medicolegal death investigation functions as uncommon nationally and said some separation of functions (for example air-handling differences between DNA post-amplification rooms and autopsy suites) supports splitting space for contamination control and best practices.

No formal vote was taken at the staff meeting. Commissioners and staff discussed alternatives, and Dilts said building on county-owned land across the street is the most economical option the county has developed to date.

For now, the commission's discussion validated the need to act but left the site and design choices open to further review during the formal CIP process.