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A collaboration between Colorado Public Radio, KUNC News, Rocky Mountain PBS, and The Colorado Sun. Stories are shared with Rocky Mountain Community Radio and other news organizations across the state.

Colorado lawmakers agree to free up $3m to address rape kit backlog

This Thursday, April 2, 2015 photo shows an evidence bag from a sexual assault case in the biology lab at the Houston Forensic Science Center in Houston. Legislators in more than 20 states are considering _ and in some cases, passing _ laws that include auditing all kits and deadlines for submitting and processing DNA evidence. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
Pat Sullivan
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AP
This Thursday, April 2, 2015 photo shows an evidence bag from a sexual assault case in the biology lab at the Houston Forensic Science Center in Houston. Legislators in more than 20 states are considering _ and in some cases, passing _ laws that include auditing all kits and deadlines for submitting and processing DNA evidence. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Some lawmakers had demanded the Colorado Bureau of Investigation show a clear plan to resolve the 500-day wait for test results

Colorado lawmakers agreed Wednesday to free up $3 million to address the state's backlog in rape kit testing. Lawmakers had been at an impasse over how to hold the Colorado Bureau of Investigation accountable for delays.


The decision in the state House of Representatives allows the CBI to shift money that had originally been dedicated to resolving a related scandal — the manipulation of test results by a longtime forensic scientist — and instead spend it on drawing down the backlog. The CBI estimated that, over two years, they could cut the backlog to 100 days.

But skeptics in the General Assembly said even that is too long. They also demanded that the CBI present a clear plan to bring down the turnaround time on tests before they would agree to release the funds.

"We need to hold the department to account and do much better," Rep. Shannon Bird, D-Westminster, told reporters earlier this week.

It currently takes about a year and a half to get rape kit results back from the CBI. State lawmakers have been united in wanting to shorten that wait.

But there have been differences over whether more money alone will help the CBI deal with the problem. Earlier this month, a panel of lawmakers voted to withhold the money until the agency showed a plan, but they were swiftly overruled by the state Senate.

Still, holdouts like Bird have remained in the state House, and as recently as Tuesday, they appeared headed for a showdown. But on Wednesday, Rep. Jenny Willford, D-Northglenn, presented a compromise: Give the CBI what it’s asking for, but require the agency to report regularly on how it’s using the money.

"Does this absolve CBI of any accountability? Absolutely not," she said.

Willford herself is waiting on results from CBI on a rape kit. She says she was sexually assaulted by a ride share driver a year ago.

"I'm sure that, if I were in their shoes, I would probably be doing the same thing," Willford said of other lawmakers. "But I’m not in their shoes. I’m a survivor, and those are the shoes that I walk in."

Willford's proposal would require the CBI to report monthly to the legislature on how it’s spending the money, and to create an online dashboard where the public can see how long the wait for rape test kit results is. It also calls on CBI to hire outside labs to help — an idea Bird and others have pushed for.

Willford’s proposal still needs to clear a few more votes, including the Senate. But it has received unanimous support in the House, including from those CBI skeptics.
Copyright 2025 KUNC

Chas joined WPLN in 2015 after eight years with The Tennessean, including more than five years as the newspaper's statehouse reporter.Chas has also covered communities, politics and business in Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. Chas grew up in South Carolina and attended Columbia University in New York, where he studied economics and journalism. Outside of work, he's a dedicated distance runner, having completed a dozen marathons
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