Officials present budget wishes
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty said Thursday that he would like the county government’s 2022 budget to include funding for a full-time assistant district attorney whose services on the DA’S Domestic Violence Acute Response Team is now supported by a grant that expires next year.
Dougherty also is seeking funds in next year’s county budget to pay the salary, benefits and other expenses of adding a second permanent full-time paralegal, who’d assist with trial support, particularly in felony crime cases, for the DA’S 33 staff prosecutors.
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle told county commissioners that among the additional personnel for which he’s requesting funding in 2022 are a digital records management specialist, a training and development coordinator, another crime analyst, and a commander for his office’s jail transportation and court security unit.
Boulder County Coroner Emma Hall and Chief Deputy Coroner Jeff Martin said they would like to have enough budget money next
year to create a family assistance services coordinator position to oversee the Coroner’s Office’s means of support of, and exchanging information with, families who have lost loved ones in death cases that wind up in that office’s jurisdiction.
The Coroner’s Office is also seeking 2022 funding for another staff medical inspector.
Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Molly Fitzpatrick would like to have another full-time administrative staff member, she told commissioners.
Such a position, the Clerk’s office spokesperson Mircalla Wozniak said in an email Thursday, “would be a new, entry-level administrative position supporting the organization, and specifically the Clerk, Deputy Clerk, and Operations Manager. To date, our office has made do with simply the Payroll Coordinator and Operations Manager taking on a lot of miscellaneous work an administrative assistant would do for an office — pay invoices, basic HR compliance, scheduling, logistical support, supply ordering, building maintenance management, etc.”
Boulder County Treasurer Paul Weissmann, however, said he’s not seeking any additional staff for his office next year.
Those were among the spending requests for 2022 that Commissioners Matt Jones, Claire Levy and Marta Loachamin heard on Thursday morning from several of their fellow elected county government office heads — and from Dougherty, an elected official whose DA’S position is actually part of state government’s judicial branch but who gets part of his budget from the county budget.
Thursday’s meeting did not include presentations from two other elected county government officeholders, County Assessor Cynthia Braddock or County Surveyor Lee Stadele.
Not all the items on the wish lists commissioners’ heard from government officials were for additional staff for those offices.
Dougherty and the DA’S Office, for example, are seeking $77,220 in software from Evidence.com , which spokesperson Shannon Carbone said in an email “maintains all of our body-worn camera video and audio evidence, as well as the data storage and transfer to defense counsel, as required by law.”
The Sheriff’s Office is asking for $75,000 to replace some of its Tasers, Taser batteries and holsters, as well as $116,000 for protective equipment for its SWAT and bomb teams.
The Coroner’s Office would like a $50,000 increase for its general operating budget to cover increased costs, Hall said, and the Clerk and Recorder’s Office is seeking funding for the redrawing of precinct boundaries that will follow the Colorado Independent Redistricting Commission’s setting of new congressional and state legislative district boundaries.
Departments and agencies under the elected Board of Commissioners’ own jurisdiction covered some of their requests in a meeting Tuesday.
The commissioners’ finance and budget staff has not yet presented its own recommendations for a 2022 spending package — a package that’s likely to include some, but not all, of what officeholders are asking for. That staff budget presentation is scheduled for Oct. 7.
The commissioners have not formally voted on any requests. A public hearing on the overall proposed budget has tentatively been set for Oct. 26. Commissioners are to make their wishes known during a Nov. 9 work session before casting final votes on measures adopting the 20222 county budget on Dec. 9.
Boulder County Commissioners adopted a county budget of $493.2 million for 2021 in December 2020, up from an adopted budget of $439.9 million in 2020.