December 28th: Opening our new Billings Montana Field Office In early December the @FBI held the ribbon cutting for our new field office in Billings, Montana - the FBI’s 56th field office in the country and the first of its kind in the region. Since the beginning of the year we have looked for ways to reallocate resources away from Washington DC and put them back in localities across the country to better serve taxpayers. Before the opening of the dedicated Billings location, our Salt Lake City location in Utah had managed all FBI locations in the state of Montana as well as all FBI operations in Utah and Idaho— a territory of more than 300,000 square miles. But the FBI's caseload in Montana alone accounted for more than half of the investigations managed by the Salt Lake office - and not having a dedicated field office in the region caused us to spread resources thin. Montana was an immediate area of need and we got it done working with Governor Gianforte, local leaders, U.S. Senators and House members who helped us facilitate the change serving Montana AND giving Utah better flexibility. More focus on states and localities. Less focus on Washington DC bureaucracy.