County attorney outlines growth, court capacity and drug trends; urges workforce retention and specialty‑court investments

Clay County Attorney Brian Milton delivered the office’s annual update to commissioners Tuesday, highlighting population growth, rising legal workloads tied to mental‑health and substance‑use issues, and the need for staff and courtroom capacity to keep pace with demand.

Milton said Clay County’s population has increased substantially over two decades and that the region’s courts and prosecutorial resources must plan to match growth. He noted Clay County’s population increased about 28.5 percent over the period cited in staff materials, and discussed the county’s current judicial complement: four seated judges and one judicial referee. Based on caseload trends Milton said the county should plan for a potential fifth judge within three to five years and additional judicial expansion in the longer term.

The county attorney reviewed crime and case trends, saying some categories rose alongside population growth while others fluctuated with policy and operational changes. He noted a past pattern of local methamphetamine manufacture faded after state law changes in the mid‑2000s, but county investigators and law enforcement continue to seize meth, cocaine and fentanyl; Milton warned of a new trend — xylazine mixed into fentanyl — that complicates overdose response and has been connected to recent overdose deaths in the region.

Milton described steady increases in civil commitments and mental‑health related matters and said juvenile mental‑health needs argue for continued investment in youth treatment options, including local PRTF (psychiatric residential treatment facility) planning. He praised specialty courts in the county (drug court, veterans court, domestic‑violence accountability court) as important alternatives to incarceration for appropriate participants and said the county’s withdrawal‑management/detox facility positions the county well for treatment‑oriented responses.

Workforce and infrastructure were recurring themes. Milton said the county attorney’s office has grown from a very small staff decades ago to a team that is “close to right‑sized” but that retention and pay competitiveness are concerns; he recommended market‑level wages and training budgets to retain prosecutors. He also raised a technology need: body‑worn camera storage and management consumes growing amounts of IT storage and will require ongoing planning and expenditure.

Milton closed by thanking the board for its ongoing support and urged continued investments in specialty courts, juvenile treatment options and staffing to meet forecasted growth in cases linked to mental‑health and chemical‑dependency issues.

Ending

Milton’s recommendations included staffing for additional attorneys and planning for courtroom capacity and technology/storage needs. Commissioners acknowledged the briefing and discussed coordinating capital and staffing planning through the building committee and upcoming budget cycles.