District Attorney Carol Chambers has billed the state for more than $200,000 in her quest to convict and put to death two inmates who are charged with killing another inmate four years ago.

Westword reported Thursday that Chambers asked the Colorado Department of Corrections for $204,000 for work last year in the prosecutions of David Bueno and Alejandro Perez.

Both have been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Jeffrey Heird at the Limon Correctional Facility in Lincoln County in 2004. Chambers is the DA for Arapahoe, Lincoln, Douglas and Elbert counties.

Under Colorado law, counties can be reimbursed by the DOC to prosecute crimes committed in state prisons.........According to the Westword report, Chambers switched from billing hourly to billing portions of salaries last year, which she contends reduces to cost to the DOC.

Part of the bill to the DOC went to fund the entire salary of Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan May, as well as paying for expert witnesses, mileage and lodging.

State Rep. Paul Weissmann, D-Louis ville, said Thursday the DOC went to the Joint Budget Committee about three weeks ago asking for $290,000, more than two-thirds of the request to meet the bill from Chambers' office. He voted against the funding in the House, which eventually approved it, Weissmann said.

Weissmann said Chambers is within the law, but he questioned where some of the money was going.

"Here she has a deputy DA who is on the payroll of the DOC," Weissmann said. "I can't believe that he is solely doing the death-penalty case."