Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen is asking El Paso County for a $50,000 salary increase for his own position, spokesperson Kate Singh said Tuesday.

The request is part of a department budget that the El Paso Board of County Commissioners will decide on at the end of the year.

Allen made a presentation this week on budget critical needs for his office, which included creation of two new District Attorney’s Office jobs and an ongoing $100,000 operation expenses increase for its 2025 budget. The presentation did not discuss changes to existing salaries, including his own. 

The 2025 balanced budget proposes a 4% salary increase for all District Attorney’s Office employees. Singh said that salaries for the office’s employees have increased by roughly 30% since 2021. 

According to Singh, the district attorney’s salary has not changed since 2016, and any changes must be approved in a resolution by the county commissioners prior to a 4-year term. She said that the district attorney is one of the few countywide elected officials whose salary is not determined by the legislature.

A spokesperson with the county said Allen is paid about $215,000 per year. 

Allen is currently running for reelection against Democratic challenger Jeremy Dowell. 

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The 2025 critical needs requests that Allen presented included money for the creation of a county court legal assistant II and a chief deputy district attorney, adding up to about $330,000.

Allen said that his office, which carries over a budget of more than $21 million from last year, does “more with less” compared to other similarly sized DA offices. 

“I think it really reflects the commitment we have here to be fiscally responsible,” he said. 

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The 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, serving El Paso and Teller counties, will become the largest in the state by population served at the beginning of next year, when the 18th District splits in two. Allen reported that his office runs a trial for an average of $903 per case, compared to $2,931 in the 2nd District, which serves metro Denver. 

The DA asked for a $150,000 operational expense increase in 2023 to cover rising IT costs, county records show.

Allen said that his office has identified several needs that justify an ongoing increase. The application submitted mentions multiple recent high-profile cases, new technology needs and increasing cost of assessments by the Colorado Council of District Attorneys. 

“Everything is more expensive now than it used to be,” he said. 

Allen said that crime was still increased compared to pre-COVID-19 numbers, though the amount of felony cases filed fell from 6,167 to 5167 from 2022 to 2023.

The number of trials, some for alleged crimes in past years, reached a five-year high in 2023. That number fell sharply this year while the Colorado state public defender, which represents the majority of criminal defendants, worked through the ramifications of a systemwide cyberattack in February, Allen said. 

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The District Attorney’s Office is currently focusing on addressing the rise of “smash and grab” burglaries and motor vehicle thefts; both are high in El Paso County. Allen said his office would be pursuing maximum sentences for smash and grabs, crimes that typically involve driving a stolen vehicle into a storefront for burglary and are often committed by minors. 

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His office also recently hired on a grant-funded domestic violence prosecutor and a motor vehicle crime prosecutor. 

“We’ve got to turn this around when it comes to motor vehicle theft,” he said. 

Enforcement remains an issue, however, since the clearance or “solved” rate of motor vehicle theft cases for law enforcement dropped from 14% in 2019 to 9% in 2023 according to 4th District numbers. 

“We are continuing to see solve rates fall year to year,” Allen said, pointing out that numbers increase over time for past years as crimes are solved later. 

County commissioners expressed general support for the increases Allen presented on, which will not be voted on until the county’s full budget is finalized around the end of the year.

Commissioner Holly Williams said she was “so pro public safety” she was recently rejected from a jury pool for an inability to judge the case fairly. 

Carrie Geitner, who was recently appointed as commission chair after Cami Bremer announced she would be stepping down in the beginning of 2025, said that small relative budget increases like those proposed by Allen can make a big difference for office effectiveness. 

“Those seemingly small amounts that sometimes are brought up are very significant when it comes to what we can do with them, and what you are able to to with them when it comes to public safety,” she said.