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District attorney cites Odyssey disruption, opioid resources and retail crime tasking in 2026 budget briefing
Summary
District Attorney Steven Howe told commissioners the office faces efficiency losses from Odyssey, continues juvenile diversion work funded partly by opioid settlement dollars and VOCA grants, and is coordinating with law enforcement on retail-theft initiatives and fentanyl prosecutions.
Johnson County District Attorney Steven Howe told the Board of County Commissioners that his office has lost key automation after the statewide switch to the Odyssey case-management system, that juvenile diversion and victim services depend on VOCA and opioid-settlement funds, and that retail theft and fentanyl remain enforcement priorities.
Howe said Odyssey reduced the office's prior auto-population of forms and case data, creating manual-transfer work the office is still trying to recover from. "There's just no way to sugarcoat that ... it impacted our ability to do our work," he said. He thanked staff and county IT for mitigation efforts.
On juvenile diversion, Howe said the office handles 400'600 diversion cases a year and that opioid-settlement funding has supported 1.75 FTEs for diversion and related services. He asked the commission to consider the long-term use of opioid-settlement money for sustained positions rather than annual allocations so the diversion program can remain stable.
Howe described a regional partnership addressing retail theft, saying the county has participated in a test case led by the Retail Industry Leaders Association and that local prosecutors and police have worked on best practices he said other jurisdictions invited them to present.
He also urged preservation or strengthening of VOCA (Victims of Crime Act) funding, which helps local victim-service partners. "One of my missions is ... to talk to our federal elected officials about reinstituting the VOCA grant to the level it was 10 years ago," Howe said, adding that a reduction would affect local victim-service providers such as SafeHome and Sunflower House.
Ending: Commissioners expressed support for juvenile diversion and asked the DA to return with specific staffing or resource requests only after local technical fixes to Odyssey are exhausted and other efficiencies have been pursued.
