Marcelo Rochabrun From: Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2017 1:08 PM To: Marcelo Rochabrun Subject: RE: Time Sensitive, Request from ProPuinca Hi Marcelo - please see the statement below in response to your first question (stand by for answers to your other follow?ups): ?In 2015, USCIS was not funding the salary and bene?t costs of the Service Center employees identi?ed as needed to process the anticipated premium processing workload from the premium processing revenue collected. In FY 2016, USCIS changed policy and began funding the salary and bene?t costs of these employees. This change in funding was discussed in an FY 2016 USCIS reprogramming noti?cation that was approved by Congress in May 2016. When the decision to begin funding USCIS personnel with premium processing funds was made, USCIS had updated cost projections for the Transformation program and determined that suf?cient premium processing funding would be available to expand the use of premium processing to fund other USCIS requirements, in addition to the Transformation program. In addition to the reprogramming noti?cation, on May 4, 2016 USCIS published a Proposed Rule in the Federal Register/ Vol. 81 No. 86 announcing its intention to adjust the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA) Fee Schedule and begin using premium processing fee revenue to fund infrastructure improvements beyond the Transformation program. USCIS implemented its new fee schedule on December 23, 2016 and will continue funding the salary and bene?t costs of the Service Center Operations staff adjudicating cases which request premium processing.?