FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 23, 2026
CONTACT: info@erictoney.com
Kaul Admits to Crime Lab Hiring Delays; Nonpartisan Audit Contradicts His Staffing Claims
Analyst vacancies more than tripled and DNA results slowed on Kaul’s watch
FOND DU LAC, WI – Eric Toney, Fond du Lac County District Attorney and Republican candidate for Attorney General, responded today to comments Attorney General Josh Kaul made to FOX6 News on September 22. Kaul claimed the vacancy rate in Wisconsin’s state crime labs is “very low.” He also acknowledged that DOJ slows hiring when its budget situation is weaker.
The nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau’s June 2024 audit of the state crime labs tells a different story. Under Kaul, the vacancy rate for crime lab analysts, the staff who examine evidence, more than tripled. It rose from 2.6% in July 2019 to 9.5% in July 2023, leaving 10 analyst positions empty (p. 16).
“Josh Kaul claims the crime lab vacancy rate is ‘very low.’ The nonpartisan audit shows it more than tripled on his watch, and now Kaul admitted he purposefully slowed hiring,” said Toney. “Victims waiting on DNA results don’t care about budget phases. They care about justice, and under Josh Kaul, it’s taking longer to get it, despite more resources to test less evidence.”
The record shows:
- The labs did less work. The number of assignments, meaning analyses of individual items of evidence, dropped 13.2%, from 12,494 to 10,843 (p. 22).
- DNA testing now takes more than twice as long. DOJ’s own annual reports show median DNA turnaround more than doubled, from 50 days in 2018 to 112 days in 2024 (DOJ Division of Forensic Sciences Annual Reports). These cases include sexual assault kits, crimes against children, and homicides.
- Budgets went up. The last three state budgets increased crime lab funding by a combined $1.3 million (Table 3, p. 12) and authorized 10.4 additional positions (p. 13).
- Management needed fixing. Auditors directed DOJ to improve productivity standards for analysts, how the labs record information, and its annual reporting (p. 37).
In 2019, Kaul said DOJ had a “sufficient number of DNA analysts to do the work” (WisconsinEye, June 1, 2019). Five years later, with turnaround times climbing, he reversed course. In his formal response to the audit, he called the need for more crime lab positions “glaring” (Attorney General’s response, p. 1). But the audit found Kaul wasn’t even filling the positions he already had: analyst vacancies more than tripled on his watch (p. 16).
As Attorney General, Toney will fix the crime labs on day one. He will correct misguided policies and set clear timelines. He will also publish public metrics so Wisconsin can hold DOJ accountable for cutting backlogs.
Eric Toney is the Fond du Lac County District Attorney and past president of the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association. As Association president, he worked with a Republican Legislature and a Democratic governor. Together they secured more than 50 new prosecutor positions, additional crime lab positions, and pay raises for prosecutors and public defenders.
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