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DFS tells council it regained accreditations but still needs hires and funding to finish DNA build‑out
Summary
Department of Forensic Sciences officials told the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety that reaccreditations are complete across core units but staff vacancies and training timelines mean DFS will still rely on outsourcing while in‑house DNA capacity grows; committee discussed a $3.5M contingency fund request.
The Department of Forensic Sciences (DFS) reported Feb. 11 that its forensic biology, forensic chemistry and latent fingerprint units have regained accreditation following multi‑year recovery efforts, and that key improvements — including an Evidence Processing Unit and upgraded instrument maintenance — have strengthened in‑house capability.
Dr. Jennifer Love, DFS chief science officer, told the committee that DFS cleared a CODIS backlog with federal grant support and has increased in‑house capacity as trainees resumed casework after responding to the mid‑air collision recovery. Love said the agency expects to have eight reporting DNA analysts in FY26 — raising capacity toward roughly 70% of current demand (about 800 cases/year if analysts reach full throughput) — but that DFS still receives more than 1,300 DNA testing requests annually and therefore will continue to outsource some analyses during the training transition.
Committee members questioned DFS leadership on a $3.5 million contingency budget item the Council placed in last year’s budget for DNA work. Love said the funds would be used to sustain necessary outsourcing while trainees finish certification, to maintain instruments, and to validate an upgraded STRmix software package needed to run probabilistic genotyping. Dr. Francisco Diaz, who serves as interim director of DFS, warned that failure to fund the contingency would risk a renewed backlog in forensic biology, chemistry and latent fingerprint casework.
The committee also probed quality‑assurance incidents and chain‑of‑custody irregularities that appeared in corrective‑action reports. DFS said two LIMS events traced to browser/vendor issues prompted root‑cause analyses, retraining and verification of effectiveness; leadership said measures are in place to avoid recurrence and that they report quality events transparently to stakeholders including the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
"Continuing to outsource allows us to keep our backlog at a sustainable amount while we train individuals," Love told the committee. "We are well on our way to having a larger number of reporting analysts, but it is a multi‑year lift."
