In an effort to save money, Maine's commissioner of public safety has proposed eliminating the director position at the Maine State Crime Lab.  That civilian position, now held by Elliot Kollman, would be replaced by a state police lieutenant. But the plan has come under challenge by some members of the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. They fear that a change in leadership might hurt the state police and the crime lab.

By eliminating the position currently held by Elliot Kollman, Commissioner Anne Jordan estimates the department could save about $150,000 dollars over the budget cycle. Republican Rep. Gary Plummer, of Windham, says Kollman would be replaced by a state police lieutenant who would assume those duties, on top of others that he currently performs for the Maine state police.

"My concern is who's going to do his responsibilities that he had before, and does this eventually filter down to road troopers, that somebody's going to have to pick up the slack here, here, here?" Plummer asked. "Or do we just say, 'Well, I guess he wasn't doing anything important before anyway, so nobody has to do it."

Others on the committee are concerned about the impact the move might have on one particular part of the Crime Lab operation.

"I was was very concerned with the Computer Crimes Task force, that's no longer a task force, but was a task force when we started it," says State Sen. Stan Gerzovsky, a Brunswick Democrat who co-chairs the committee.

Gerzovsky says the State Police Department's Computer Crimes Task Force is under Kollman, who has been involved in preparing grant applications that are keeping the agency afloat. Gerzovsky and other lawmakers question what happens to those duties if Kollman goes away.

"Since this change has started, I've got very serious concerns about the public safety," Gerzovsky says. "And not worrying a whit about this state police lieutenant that's being proposed for that position, and that he can't do his job. I certainly think he can, but I'm wondering what we're not going to do. I'm also wondering about the grant writing that Representative Plummer talked about."

"Is there still a backlog of hard drives and other evidence?" asked State Sen. Bill Diamond, another Windham Democrat, who is co-chair of the Appropriations Committee and former co-chair of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

Diamond wondered what impact the top-level change at the crime lab would have on the computer crimes unit's already challenged ability to respond to child porography and other cyber complaints. "Just to clarify one thing -- so we have two backlogs there as I understand it. One group of backlogs are those hard drives with evidence that would take perpetrators off the street, but they're sitting in the closet, we haven't gotten to them yet; and we have another group of backlogs where the autopsy's have been done on the hard drives, but there's not enough people yet to get those people and initiate the court process."

At the request of state Rep. Anne Haskell, a Portland Democrat and co-chair of the Criminal Justice panel, the Appropriations Committee extended the review of the Kollman's position for another week to determine what impacts the change would actually have.