The 85th Texas legislature starts its session on Jan. 10, 2017.

As it stands, roughly 4,200 untested rape kits going back five years are without funding and a clear plan in place to be tested.The Senate Finance Committee is working on a remedy to this problem, with Chairwoman Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, saying she plans to fully fund the backlog tests in her draft of the budget.However, even after the Legislature fully funded the testing of 10,500 backlogged kits in 2013 with an appropriation of just under $11 million, a number of kits from that batch remain untested today.The Texas Department of Public Safety issued a report stating there were 4,167 untested rape kits from the pre-August 2011 backlog that had yet to be tested as of Nov. 30, 2016.The majority of these untested kits come from the Dallas Police Department—2,380 total. A significant portion, 497 total, are also pending in the Austin area.Officials with the Legislative Budget Board said the entirety of those kits will finally be tested by the end of the current biennium.Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McGraw said the state agency doesn't have the capacity to test all of these kits on their own. DPS has started outsourcing the testing as a result while working with prosecutors to prioritize which cases get tested first.In Austin, law enforcement agencies are making deals with private contractors to try and eliminate the backlog.This is still challenging, though, with more test kits being added to the queue each month. Austin Police Department Assistant Chief Troy Gay said between 24 and 30 new kits are submitted for testing on a monthly basis in Austin.Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, expressed dismay at this problem, saying it deeply troubled him."We've got rapes that are taking place and have taken place over the last five years and there's a backlog," Uresti said. "That means by the time these cases get to trial, not withstanding what the results might show, it is going to be very difficult to convict the perpetrator."Uresti said it is critical for Texas to test the kits immediately."I will be pushing for increased funding to test sexual assault kits so we can prevent more of these costly tragedies," Uresti said.The San Antonio state senator said the key to eliminating a future backlog is sustained funding.The Senate's budget proposes providing $4.2 million for testing the outstanding 4,200 kits that have accumulated since Aug. 1, 2011. The kits backlogged prior to that date are already fully funded.In 2011, lawmakers passed a bill that required all kits be tested within 30 days of their submission. After being passed, the law revealed the backlog of 19,000 untested kits, which spurred a series of measures to increase funding and expedite testing.