FY 2018 DNA Capacity Enhancement and Backlog Reduction Program

Monroe County is located on the southwest end of Lake Ontario in New York State. The County is a unit of local government run by an elected County Executive and County Legislature. The County has its own Crime laboratory, which falls under the direction of the Department of Public Safety.

The Monroe County Crime Laboratory (MCCL) is an ASCLD-LAB accredited regional crime lab that provides forensic DNA services for over 25 major police agencies within an eight county region of New York State including Monroe, Genesee, Livingston, Ontario, Seneca, Wayne, Wyoming, and Yates counties.

The goal of this project is to coordinate funding with existing grants to maximize the laboratory’s analysis capacity. The objectives of the grant are to:

• Providing continuing education and training by sending staff members to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences annual meeting, Gordon Research Seminar, Green Mountain DNA Conference, Promega’s International Symposium on Human Identification, a regional forensic science organization annual meeting, and the Technical Leader to the Technical Leader Summit;
• Purchasing supplies to compensate for the laboratory’s current budget gap and maintain the projected casework needs;
• Purchasing instrumentation, reagents, and consumables to stay current with changing technology (Next Generation Sequencing); and,
• Fulfilling accreditation requirements through acquiring relevant scientific literature, calibration and certification of equipment.

NCA/NCF