A Senate panel quickly confirmed the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Tuesday. During the Senate Criminal Justice committee hearing, Rick Swearingen reiterated his call for more personnel and pay raises to retain crime lab analysts. That’s supposed to help with the backlog of thousands of untested rape kits in the state.
“I think the retention of our lab analysts will go a long way to help us resolve that,” said Swearingen. “We’re working on a business plan now on how to address those 11,000 that are coming in, based on our survey. So, we’ll have a business plan ready at the time the survey results are produced to address that. I’m not going to say we may not come back before you next year, but I think what we’re asking for this year will help get us there.”
Last session, Swearingen spent 20 minutes reassuring lawmakers he was the man for the job, after Governor Rick Scott ousted his predecessor Gerald Bailey. This time, due to time constraints, his initial confirmation hearing took two minutes.
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