County attorney urges Utah County commissioners to fund prosecutors, paralegals and victim coordinators

David, the county attorney, told the Utah County Commission at a work session that his office needs more staff and funding to restore balance to a system that resolves nearly all cases by plea and to fulfill statutory duties to crime victims. "We resolve by way of plea bargain 99 over 99% of our cases," he said, adding that the resulting drop in jury trials concentrates prosecutorial power and reduces public confidence.

He thanked the commission for approving 15 additional attorneys and two legal assistants, which he said reduced the office’s caseload from about 240 cases per lawyer to roughly 165. David said the 15-lawyer increase represents about a $1,800,000 addition to the office budget.

Beyond prosecutors, David asked the commission to fund six additional paralegals to support trial work. He described paralegals as the "offensive line" of trials who prepare exhibits, marshal evidence and coordinate courtroom technology; four paralegals supported roughly 50 jury trials last year. He estimated the incremental paralegal expense at about $540,000 (he characterized the figure as a rough calculation).

David also asked for more investigative staff and for reclassifying a sergeant as a digital forensic specialist; the office has acquired Cellebrite software for phone extractions and has used it 32 times on 32 phones in the previous 21 days. He said the investigations bureau has three main roles—high‑end technical work for local agencies, white‑collar case investigations and serving as lead for officer‑involved shooting and internal affairs inquiries—and argued that housing certain lab or specialized functions in the county attorney’s office may better serve all 23 municipal and county law enforcement agencies.

On white‑collar crime, David said the office has historically screened cases with a roughly $100,000 threshold and asked the commission to authorize lowering that threshold so smaller, locally damaging frauds can be investigated. "Most members of the community would be devastated if they lose $5,000," he said.

David emphasized statutory obligations to victims and witnesses. He said the office handles about 4,000 victims a year with three victim‑witness coordinators (about 1,333 victims per coordinator) and explained coordinators must make multiple meaningful contacts, arrange travel, assist at hearings and help pursue restitution through the crime victim and reparation procedures. He said the office’s demonstrated need is 18 coordinators to provide two coordinators per courtroom but limited the formal request this cycle to adding six coordinators (to reach nine total) as a partial step toward compliance.

The county attorney flagged unpaid overtime across several roles—paralegals (~118 overtime hours), victim coordinators (223 overtime hours) and investigators (90 overtime hours)—and said the office currently manages overtime by time‑off adjustments rather than straight pay, a practice he called risky and a management challenge.

Commissioners questioned some requests. One commissioner said she was not supportive of adding paralegals or certain victim coordinator positions in this budget cycle and proposed reducing professional legal services and expert witness funding to $100,000 for now. Commissioners also asked staff to provide follow‑up data, including the source of cases by referring agency (municipal police, sheriff, joint task forces) and equipment‑sharing options for high‑tech forensic tools.

David said he would supply the requested referral data during the meeting and later by email. He repeatedly framed some shortfalls as resource constraints that prevent full statutory compliance—"My job is to provide the services. Your job is to provide the funding," he said—and warned that high‑cost death‑penalty cases impose substantial fiscal risk on counties.

The commission did not adopt new budget items during the session; members gave mixed early signals about which requests they would support in the coming budget cycle and asked for specific cost and referral breakdowns as next steps.