AUGUSTA – Federal cuts have delayed rape kit analysis at the state’s crime lab, an official said Tuesday.

A decline in grant money earmarked to the state agency for DNA testing accounts for a backlog of kits awaiting analysis, said Crime Lab Director Elliot Kollman.

In 2003, Maine got $520,000 in federal money that paid for four full-time workers and one part-timer. This year, Maine got $225,000. It has one full-time and one part-time worker.

Maine also has spent federal grant money on equipping its crime lab with cutting-edge technology. But that’s only helpful if there are technicians in the lab who can put the new technology to use, Kollman said.

He said federal funding is based on violent crime statistics. “Basically, Maine is a very safe state.”

Since 1999, the Maine agency has tested DNA in its own lab, rather than sending samples out of state, Kollman said.

When samples are collected by law enforcement agencies throughout the state and sent to the lab, they are first assigned to a chemist. There, biological material is isolated and sent to the DNA unit for analysis.

Once the DNA is defined in the sample, it is tested against DNA collected from a suspect in that case. If there is no suspect, it is tested for a match against profiles in DNA databases at the state and national levels. All convicted felons are required to submit DNA samples in all states, Kollman said.

Maine’s lab has 53 sexual assault DNA samples waiting to be assigned to a chemist, the oldest dating to December 2007, Kollman said. Two cases have gone through the chemistry unit and are awaiting DNA testing, he said. The oldest of those dates to Nov. 13.

Also, chemists are at work on 16 samples and DNA specialists are busy with four cases.

If Maine continued to get the same federal grants it did four years ago, the backlog would almost be eliminated, Kollman said.

Add to those numbers cases involving property crimes and the number rises. The total number of cases needing DNA testing is growing, he said. In past years, the state would get up to 600 samples. This year, it had close to 1,000, Kollman said.

It’s not first-come, first-served at the lab, he said. Cases are prioritized. “If there’s a homicide, we drop everything,” he said. A call from a law enforcement agency often will result in moving that case to the front of the line.

Assistant District Attorney Deborah Cashman, who prosecutes sex crimes at Androscoggin County Superior Court, said she used to have to wait sometimes up to a year for test results, but waiting times have gotten shorter recently. If she has a case that needs immediate attention, the lab will adjust its schedule, she said.

“They’re very accommodating,” she said.

By contrast, some larger cities have logjams of untested rape kits numbering in the thousands. Los Angeles has a reported 7,000, according to a New York Times editorial.

In West Virginia, the backlog has grown to nearly 700 untested kits, despite $230,000 in federal money, the editorial said.