El Paso County district attorney details caseload trends, victim services and resource pressures

District Attorney Michael Allen told the El Paso County Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday that his office is not seeking additional critical‑needs funding in the 2026 budget but warned that administrative burdens, statutory changes and rising juvenile violent crime are creating operational pressures.

Allen, the elected district attorney for the Fourth Judicial District, summarized caseload trends, staffing, victim services and prosecution priorities during the county’s second budget hearing. “The DA's office is created by Colorado Constitution and state statute,” Allen said, describing the office’s role in enforcing state law across El Paso and Teller counties.

He said the office currently employs about 259 full‑time equivalents, and that volunteers played a substantive role over the past year: “We’ve got 56 volunteers over the last year that produced 9,275.79 hours of donated work,” Allen said. He described diversion and mediation programs that the office uses to reduce court burden and route low‑risk offenders to treatment and education: juvenile diversion had an 85.6 percent success rate and adult diversion an 89 percent success rate, Allen said.

Why it matters: Allen framed his briefing as both taxpayer‑facing transparency and an explanation of operational constraints that will affect public safety outcomes. He highlighted areas where the office is absorbing new work without additional budget requests — for example, processing large volumes of body‑worn camera footage and other digital discovery — and where state statute and system capacity are producing case delays.

Administrative and discovery burdens

Allen described discovery work as increasingly administrative. “If you consider a domestic violence call out and you think that maybe five or six police officers show up and they’re all wearing body worn camera … that’s at least five or six hours of body worn camera footage that has to be processed and watched by somebody in the DA's office and somebody in defense,” he said. He said the office is exploring vendor tools, including Axon products, to manage video and digital evidence but noted the expense and legal risks of adopting AI tools without careful guardrails.

Juvenile referrals and violent offenses

Allen said the office has seen an increase in violent juvenile offending and described legislative and social drivers. He said the juvenile code’s emphasis on rehabilitation and limits on holding facilities, combined with some offenders committing more serious offenses, have increased juvenile‑to‑adult filings. The office has increased juvenile prosecution staffing from three to five attorneys in response.

Victims and restitution

Allen described the district’s victim services workload and compensation payments. He said the office made more than 50,000 victim contacts during the reporting period and that, for fiscal year 2023, the office provided $1,376,561 in victim compensation. He also said the office paid about $1,155,000 in victim compensation in calendar year 2024. Allen said the Fourth Judicial District handles more victims than many larger jurisdictions and that restitution collection remains difficult because many offenders lack resources.

Organized crime and trafficking enforcement

Allen highlighted recent organized‑crime and drug enforcement results and said those investigations have produced large seizures but are often not widely publicized while cases are pending. In one example he described, investigators seized what he said were 2,364 grams of fentanyl, 421 grams of methamphetamine, 58 grams of cocaine, 51 grams of heroin, about $15,000 in cash and more than 20 firearms in a single investigation.

Courts, trials and competency concerns

Allen said the office remains trial‑focused and has rebounded from pandemic and courthouse disruptions: “In 2023, [we had] the new record for the office at 465 trials,” he said. He also raised competency statute and state hospital capacity as systemic issues creating backlogs. Allen told commissioners the state is under a consent decree related to inpatient competency restoration and estimated statewide costs of roughly $10 million to $12 million per year tied to capacity issues.

Local examples and prosecutions

Allen presented several recent prosecutions to illustrate office work, including homicide and sexual‑assault convictions. He credited collaborative investigations with local law enforcement and federal partners in complex cases and noted one recent prosecution that resulted in life sentences.

Commissioners’ reaction and next steps

Commissioners asked about possible efficiencies, volunteer roles and how statewide statistics are reported. Commissioner Alice Nelson asked whether the office is exploring AI for prescreening; Allen said the office is evaluating tools but must consider expense and legal risks. Several commissioners thanked the DA’s staff for the office’s work on victim services, trials and specialized units such as the veterans trauma court and organized‑crime unit.

Allen concluded by reiterating that the DA’s office was not making a critical‑needs budget request for 2026 but warned that future judicial expansions, changes to competency law, or new statutory mandates could create unfunded obligations for the office.

Ending: The DA’s presentation was part of the county’s ongoing 2026 budget hearings; commissioners will consider budget direction and potential changes in subsequent hearings before adopting the final 2026 budget in December.