Falling court assessments creating huge backlogs for criminal repository

The state's Criminal History Repository has falling far behind in processing fingerprints, court dispositions and domestic-violence reports because its funding system is broken, its director says.

Daryl Riersgard told a subcommittee of Senate Finance and the Assembly Ways and Means committees Friday that the court assessments that pay for his operation were $361,616 below what was budgeted last year, and he expects them to fall $797,000 short this year.

"As a result, we were unable to complete approximately 40 percent of my workload," he told lawmakers. "And that workload is increasing by 25 percent a year."

He said when court assessments fall short, his budget is less, and he can't fill vacant positions. That, he said, prevents his staff from keeping up with the load, causing the backlog to grow.

Riersgard said that until a special grant was used to try catch up, the repository had a backlog of 70,000 fingerprint cards not logged into the system. While the backlog has been reduced to just 7,000, he said the repository receives 77,000 more sets of fingerprints each year than it can process.

On top of that, he said the repository has a backlog of 110,000 court dispositions that should be entered into the system.

He said the repository uses those records to identify criminals -- including sex offenders seeking jobs in positions they should be barred from.

He said the repository is 20,000 cases behind in processing domestic violence protective orders.

The issue was raised in another hearing two weeks ago by Public Safety Director Richard Kirkland, who said, "Under current staffing, there is no way, let me repeat the term, no way the current staffing can make up the backlog."

He urged lawmakers to change the way the repository is funded so that its budgets are stable and it can keep up records police throughout Nevada used to identify criminals. Until then, he said he is recommending a change, allowing staff to stop processing misdemeanor fingerprint cards, which make up more than half of the total workload.

He said that would violate state rules and make the FBI unhappy, but it's the only solution he has at this point.