Evers Administration secured nearly $139 million in investments for the facility to bolster efficiency, expand opportunities for partnership and education, and offer critical support for victims and families when they need it most 
WAUWATOSA — Gov. Tony Evers and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, together with local public leaders and stakeholders, today celebrated the official ribbon-cutting of the new Forensic Science and Protective Medicine Facility in Southeast Wisconsin, the new state-of-the-art home of Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Crime Lab, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office, and the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management. The four-story facility also includes the relocated Organ Procurement Organization and Tissue Bank of Versiti Wisconsin, which is a current Milwaukee Regional Medical Center (MRMC) campus partner. Part of the governor’s longstanding efforts to invest in streamlining Wisconsin’s criminal justice system, support victims and survivors, and build stronger, safer communities, the Evers Administration secured nearly $139 million to support the project.

“This new state-of-the-art facility will offer critical support for victims and families when they need it most, but will also increase efficiency, expand opportunities for partnerships, and enhance the education of our future forensic science professionals. It will have a huge impact on services all across the region and the state, and I’m proud to have championed this project with County Executive Crowley and that the state was able to help get this important project over the finish line,” said Gov. Evers. “Navigating the justice system, and in the most extreme cases, grieving the loss of a loved one is hard enough, but dealing with delays due to a lack of resources or aging technology can make things all that much more difficult. Having the upgraded space, technology, and capacity to aid in this important work is essential, and that’s exactly what this new facility was created to do.”

“This facility is about the people behind the work: the forensic scientists, medical examiners, dispatchers, and emergency managers who show up for our community on its hardest days. When they have the right space, tools, and teammates, they can respond faster, work more closely together, and deliver more for the residents who depend on them,” said County Executive Crowley. “By bringing our crime lab, medical examiner, and emergency management teams together, we are building a stronger, more coordinated response to everything from the opioid epidemic to violence in our neighborhoods to large-scale emergencies. I am grateful to Governor Evers and the State of Wisconsin for their partnership in making this investment possible. Together, we are showing our commitment to those who serve.”

The Forensic Science and Protective Medicine Facility is being funded with $115 million in state funds that were approved by the State Building Commission, which is chaired by the governor. After multiple previous attempts to move this project forward failed, in 2022, Gov. Evers directed an additional nearly $24 million grant to assist Milwaukee County in the construction of the facility, bringing the total state support for the new facility to nearly $139 million. This additional investment directed by Gov. Evers ensured the project could meet the threshold needed to begin construction and prevented the project from once again being stalled. 

As noted above, the new Forensic Science and Protective Medicine Facility not only houses Wisconsin’s Milwaukee Crime Lab, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office, the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management, and Versiti Wisconsin’s Organ Procurement Organization and Tissue Bank, but is also in close proximity to Froedtert Hospital and the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) Campus. Bringing these entities together is expected to: 

– Increase efficiencies and effectiveness in addressing the ongoing and accelerating opioid and violence epidemics; 
– Aid coordination and collaboration during mass fatality and catastrophic scenarios; 
– Optimize partnerships among laboratories with the potential for resource-sharing and backup; 
– Provide one location to best investigate combined/preserved evidence; 
– Create one of the most attractive forensic science sites in the country to attract, train, and retain the best forensic candidates; and 
– Capitalize on synergies, research, and training with partners on the MRMC campus.

Centrally located on the MRMC campus in Milwaukee, the Forensic Science and Protective Medicine Facility provides easy access to all major highways, as well as to the Milwaukee County Transit System. The facility, co-owned by the state and county, will benefit from more than $1 billion in recent investments, from interchange construction to the MRMC’s thermal plant utilities, offering reliability and reduced rates. The facility’s proximity to restaurants, hotels, and meeting spaces also makes it a prime location for staff and visitors. 

Since December 2015, the MCW has served as the key campus partner in the planning, design, and implementation phases of the project, continuing MCW’s long-time partnerships with the state and county to improve the health of the community through expanded academic, training, and research opportunities. 

EVERS ADMINISTRATION’S EFFORTS TO END CYCLES OF VIOLENCE, REDUCE CRIME, AND KEEP KIDS, FAMILIES, AND COMMUNITIES SAFE  
 
Over the past seven years, Gov. Evers has made addressing violence, reducing crime, and keeping kids, families, and communities safe a cornerstone priority of his administration. Building on this work, last week, Gov. Evers joined the Milwaukee Bucks to recognize Domestic Violence Awareness Month and announce the launch of the statewide “Real Love is Respect” campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the issue of domestic and intimate partner violence in Wisconsin and connecting Wisconsinites with resources and help if they need it. The partnership, announced by Gov. Evers earlier this year, is supported by a $200,000 investment by the Evers Administration. To learn more about domestic violence prevention or to find additional resources, go to RealLoveIsRespect.wi.gov.   

To date, the Evers Administration has also directed more than $100 million of the state’s allocation of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds toward community safety and violence prevention efforts, including creating a new statewide Wisconsin Office of Violence Prevention, which works to reduce crime, prevent violence, including intimate partner and gun violence, and improve community safety across Wisconsin.  

In addition, Gov. Evers’s efforts to address the root causes of violence have included investing in programs and interventions being spearheaded by organizations already working in local communities, including: 

– $6.6 million to the Medical College of Wisconsin’s (MCW) Violence Prevention Project, which is housed in their Comprehensive Injury Center. These funds are being used to support research, data collection, education, and community engagement efforts around violence prevention as a public health issue; 
– $10.4 million also to MCW’s Violence Prevention Project to administer a competitive grant process to support violence prevention project efforts statewide. Ten communities and organizations were selected to receive these funds in June 2023; 
– $8 million to the city of Milwaukee’s Office of Violence Prevention, now the Office of Community Wellness and Safety, to respond to the pandemic-related uptick in violence and trauma with projects that take a public health approach to violence prevention;
– $20 million to support VOCA grant recipients, as the state has seen critical cuts to federal VOCA funding over the last several years and an increased need for services;
– Gov. Evers later signed 2023 Wisconsin Act 241, which directed $10 million to support violence prevention and crime victim and survivor services, including providing funding for sexual assault victim services, domestic abuse grants, and child advocacy grants. Approximately $19 million for a statewide law enforcement grant program that provided an allocation to every local and Tribal law enforcement agency in Wisconsin, enabling agencies to address the unique needs facing their communities, including training, recruitment bonuses, community policing needs, and technology investments; 
– $1 million for the Wisconsin Technical College System to support part-time police academy programs in Wisconsin; 
– Nearly $20 million to Milwaukee County and the city of Milwaukee for criminal justice system initiatives and community safety projects; and
– More than $16 million toward reducing the pandemic-related backlog of criminal cases statewide.

Gov. Evers has also proposed commonsense community safety and gun safety measures in all four of the biennial budgets he has introduced to date. The governor’s 2025-27 Executive Budget proposed the most robust and comprehensive gun safety reform efforts to date, including:  

– Providing ongoing funding to make the Office of Violence Prevention a permanent office in state government;
– Investing $66 million to support services for crime victims statewide and help critical victim service providers stay afloat after seeing significant recent reductions in federal funding under VOCA;
– Closing a loophole to prevent domestic abusers from possessing firearms;
– Promoting and supporting the safe storage of firearms to prevent guns from getting into the hands of kids, people who may be at risk of harming themselves, individuals who are prohibited from possessing firearms, and individuals who are a threat to others;
– Enacting “red flag” laws to give law enforcement and loved ones critical tools to help keep people safe;
– Creating a new program called the Self-Assigned Firearm Exclusion (SAFE) Program, which will help ensure folks who are in crisis have access to the resources needed to keep themselves and others safe;Requiring violent history checks for most firearm purchases;
– Requiring a waiting period between firearm purchases and possession; andBanning untraceable guns and certain firearm modification devices.     
An online version of this release is available here.