With Summit County’s contribution to the 5th Judicial District doubling in the county’s 2026 draft budget, the Summit Board of County Commissioners had the district attorney’s office give a presentation about its budget needs at an Oct. 28 work session.

The contribution is currently planned to increase from $1.4 million in 2025 to about $2.8 million in 2026, according to finance director David Reynolds. District attorney Heidi McCollum outlined issues that are increasing the workload for her office and creating a need for more staff members.

McCollum said the 5th Judicial District, which covers Summit, Clear Creek, Eagle and Lake counties, has seen legislative changes over the last few years that have “put a strain” on her office.

One change McCollum mentioned is competency court, which she said is in Eagle County but takes defendants from around the district referred to it by her office or the defense. Competency court takes defendants out of district or county court and gets them a competency evaluation, she said.

“We want to make sure that someone has the ability to understand the nature of the proceedings against them,” McCollum said.

Competency court has around 75 people in it, McCollum said, which is an amount of cases equivalent to a full-time attorney’s workload. The district does not have an attorney position specifically for competency court, though, so attorneys share the caseload.

McCollum said another program, competency diversion, started in the district Oct. 1. It helps reduce the number of people in competency court by providing services like housing, food or employment assistance to low-level offenders. 

“If they can stay out of the court system during their diversion period, then ultimately their case is dismissed,” McCollum said. “Then they’re not in the court system anymore.”

A similar program, juvenile and adult diversion, gets low-level offenders out of the district court system, McCollum said. Her office refers participants to relevant resources, and the participants perform reparations, like writing apology letters or completing community service, and pay restitution to get their cases dismissed.

“People can really work off their criminal charges outside of the criminal system,” McCollum said.

With around 50 adults and 45 juveniles in the diversion programs, McCollum said nearly 100 people are now “not clogging up the court system.” While attorneys no longer need to handle those cases, she said, the workload is now on the district’s diversion staff.

McCollum also mentioned a 2020 Colorado law that set new standards requiring law enforcement officers to use their body cameras more often. That law, in addition to an increase in private security cameras in Colorado, has led to a large increase in the amount of video evidence the district has to review per case, McCollum said.

When McCollum took a random sampling of misdemeanors and felonies from the past five years, she found that the amount of video and audio footage per case had increased. For misdemeanors, the average rose from 36 minutes in 2021 to six hours in 2025. For felonies, it increased from two hours to just over nine hours.

McCollum said her sampling is “not conclusive,” as it does not include every felony or misdemeanor case or any traffic or juvenile cases. She said she feels confident, though, that the data shows an increase in the average hours that attorneys now need to spend viewing audio and video in any case.

The district has seen two trends that have resulted in higher workloads, McCollum said. The number of appeals have increased, she said, and the district only has one appellate attorney. For some appeals, she said, district attorneys have to review entire case transcripts, which takes time.

Although McCollum said the district has not seen a significant increase in cases overall, it has seen an increase in certain types of cases that require significant work hours. Areas with increasing cases include homicides; violent juvenile crimes; organized crimes like retail, car and bike theft; financial cyber crimes; and construction fraud, McCollum said.

The district has taken steps to reduce the impact of the increased demands, McCollum said. She mentioned specialized training, the formation of specialized prosecution units for sexual violence and appellate cases, increased recruiting efforts like a mentoring program that has brought on seven interns, and district-owned housing for employees.

McCollum said her office will need expanded facilities and staffing in the next two-to-three years, as its facilities are currently at or over capacity and the district aims to bolster its workforce and add new specialized prosecution units. 

The commissioners asked McCollum questions after her presentation and requested her office provide more information, like a breakdown of the district’s increases in positions and salaries. 

Commissioner Eric Mamula asked how the district attorney’s office calculates the cost sharing among the four counties it encompasses. Reynolds said the formula considers several factors: property assessed value, population, net taxable sales through sales tax and caseload.

McCollum said the counties agreed on that formula sometime prior to 2013, and state law requires counties to split the costs based on population unless they form an agreement like the 5th Judicial District counties did.

County manager Dave Rossi listed the other counties’ contribution amounts for 2026 — about $706,000 for Clear Creek, just over $4 million from Eagle and around $153,000 from Lake.

The county staff report about McCollum’s presentation stated the $2.8 million budget request does not include another request from the district attorney’s office to “backfill approximately $320,000” due to an accounting error.

Summit County Government communications director Adrienne Saia Isaac wrote in an email that the district attorney’s office miscalculated its starting fund balance for 2025, meaning it assumed it had more money than it did to start the year. Because of that error, the office recently asked for additional funding from each of its four counties. Summit County recently made a supplemental contribution of $324,500 for 2025.

Commissioner Tamara Pogue said she empathizes with the district’s struggle to adhere to “unfunded mandates” from the state.

“We are struggling to pay for all of the unfunded mandates, not just the district attorney’s unfunded mandates,” Pogue said. “Anything that comes as a significant increase at this point is going to have to go through a lot of scrutiny.”