District Attorney Matthew Carzan of the Fourteenth Judicial District presented a budget request and an operational change intended to increase consistency and case quality across Routt, Moffat and Grand counties.

Carzan said he plans to step out of a full-time courtroom docket role and lead a dedicated felony-review function across the district. He told commissioners that by centralizing felony intake and case-review work he can reduce piecemeal triage, improve charge selection, and free courtroom prosecutors to focus on litigation. Carzan said his office hired or anticipated hires to shore up county-level coverage and that he expects a new county‑court prosecutor to start in November.

Why it matters: The change is intended to reduce prosecutorial triage caused by short staffing and to give law enforcement more consistent prosecutorial review across counties. Carzan said the move would give prosecutors “more bandwidth” in court and improve the quality of filings by ensuring adequate front‑end work on felony cases.

Carzan discussed operational pressures, including staff departures over the prior year, and said the office planned to return vacancy savings to counties: from the 2024 vacancy-savings pool the DA’s office reported returning $87,662.26 to Grand County, $67,063.19 to Moffat County and $114,184.65 to Routt County. He estimated district‑wide vacancy savings for 2025 would total roughly $200,000–$250,000 and said funds would be returned proportionally to counties.

Commissioners discussed community concerns about prosecution and enforcement, transports to community-corrections facilities and the limits of county budgets for those transports. Carzan recommended counties consider seeking legislative fixes for unfunded state requirements if transportation to out-of-county programs continues to be costly.

Formal action: Commissioners from the three counties held a tri‑county meeting on the DA budget. A motion to approve the Tri‑County personnel budget for the DA was made on the record and passed by voice vote. Separately, the commissioners approved the operations budget request and the 2024 adult diversion funding request (the adult diversion allocation was to be paid from a reduction in 2024 reimbursements returned to counties). The transcript records voice votes of “Aye” for each motion; no recorded no votes or roll-call tallies appear in the excerpt provided.

Next steps: Carzan said he would continue onboarding new hires, spend at least one day a week embedded with county law enforcement at times, and return to commissioners with any further budget needs or updates on vacancy savings and recruitment.