2023 Coverdell Forensic Science Formula Grant - Iowa

Funding is requested to support the Iowa Department of Public Safety, Division of Criminal Investigation, Criminalistics Laboratory and the Department of Public Health, State Medical Examiner’s Office.

Criminalistics Laboratory: The 2023 Base Award will be utilized by the Iowa Department of Public Safety, Criminalistics Laboratory to provide overtime for criminalists and evidence technicians to clear cases and reduce case turnaround time. The Crime Lab will utilize grant funding to purchase equipment to be used to detect and test for opioids and other drugs.

Department of Public Health, Office of State Medical Examiner: The 2023 Base Award will be utilized by the Iowa Department of Public Health, Office of State Medical Examiner to provide training to state and local death investigators/pathologists. The funding will also be utilized to purchase hours from the case management system vendor to provide enhancements to the system to enhance case entry efficiency and reporting capabilities and to contract for forensic pathologists to assist with forensic autopsies. 

Project Goals: Improve analysis capability and capacity relating to illegal opioid drug use in Iowa.
Utilize overtime in the areas most needed to reduce backlog and turnaround time. Improve quality of death investigation in underserved areas of Iowa, enhance IOSME continuing forensic education, and increase more accurate and timely reporting of drug/toxicology-related deaths, in particular opioids.

Coverdell Performance Measures: Project staff currently collect and report the required Coverdell Performance Measures. Both the Iowa Criminalistics Laboratory and the Iowa Medical Examiner’s Office have case management systems in place which in the normal course of business report the Coverdell performance measures. Each office has assigned a specific individual to report the measures on a quarterly basis to the Office of Drug Control Policy.