Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

20. Department of Veterans Affairs · Notable · Needs Congress

Authorize more non-career PA positions at the VA

Not started

652 20. Department of Veterans Affairs

“The VA is the second-largest federal agency, yet it is authorized a woefully small number of PA/PAS positions when compared to other agencies of lesser size. Congress and the Office of Personnel Management should be engaged on ways to provide authorities for a higher number of non-career PA positions.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    No bill of the 119th Congress would authorize more presidentially appointed positions at VA, and no administration request for them was found. A search of the Corpus's 119th-Congress bills and public laws for presidential-appointment and Senate-confirmation measures returns one bill, and it concerns Inspectors General at the Federal Reserve and the CFPB. The two VA organization vehicles of the window move other levers: H.R. 9237, the Take Care of America's Veterans Act, would establish an Under Secretary for Management and Chief Financial Officer (§402) — one post, and the bill's proceedings were postponed on the House floor on 2026-07-16 without a passage vote, which under §3b leaves the rung alone — and S. 4400 would constrain VA reorganizations rather than expand appointment authorities. Nothing records VA engaging OPM on the question. VA's FY2027 submission instead funds one new Assistant Secretary office, for Operations, Security, and Preparedness (#1809), out of the existing allocation. See the Chapter 20 cluster negative search for the queries.

    No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Requires Congress, so the ladder is §3b’s: introduction is not started, passage by one chamber or a formal administration request is attempted. Neither exists.
  • Related: #1798 (transfer career SES out of PA/PAS-designated positions) and #1805 (a vetted roster of candidates for key VA positions) turn on the same small stock of appointed posts; the nomination record is in the Chapter 20 log entry for #1798.
Action
expand
Object
Non-career PA positions at the VA
ID
1806