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

20. Department of Veterans Affairs · Minor

Decouple Human Resources and Administration from the Office of Security and Preparedness

Done

654 20. Department of Veterans Affairs

“Consider decoupling HRA and the Office of Security and Preparedness (OSP). … The functions of HRA and OSP are dissimilar and thus create an organization that is difficult to staff with the talent needed to execute both missions effectively.”

What has happened

  1. Done

    The separation took effect on 2025-10-06 and the two offices now stand apart in every respect the Quote's complaint turns on. VA created a dedicated Assistant Secretary position for OSP "to give high-level, dedicated leadership and oversight to critical security, law enforcement, emergency management, continuity, personnel suitability, and operational readiness functions", making its Assistant Secretary "the principal advisor to SECVA" on those matters, and describes OSP as "an independent organization with a dedicated Assistant Secretary". The FY2027 request funds them separately — HRA at $173.3 million and 227 direct FTE, OSP at $35.6 million and 144 direct FTE, with $5.6 million of the General Administration increase earmarked to "Establish[] Assistant Secretary office for OSP" — where the FY2026 request had "show[n] HRA and OSP as a combined office". OSP has its own Assistant Secretary, Reginal G. A. Neal, and its own page under VA's administrations and offices; HRA's is Mark R. Engelbaum. The dissimilar missions the Quote wanted separated are separated.

  2. Attempted

    The Secretary signed the memorandum that splits the office. VA's FY2027 congressional submission records it in one line: "Per VA Secretary memorandum dated September 16, 2025, the Office of Operations, Security, and Preparedness (OSP) separated from the Office of Human Resources and Administration (HRA) effective October 6, 2025." Directed but not yet in force, so `attempted`.

Research log

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

Research notes

  • The one loose end: the HRA office page still carries pre-split boilerplate describing HRA as covering “law enforcement and physical security” and “national security and emergency preparedness” (https://department.va.gov/administrations-and-offices/human-resources-and-administration/, fetched 2026-09-01). The FY2027 budget chapters, which are the authoritative statement of the organization and its money, are unambiguous, and the OSP page and its separate appropriation confirm the split; the stale web copy is noted rather than treated as contrary evidence.
  • The OSP page’s date is taken from department.va.gov/page-sitemap.xml, which gives it a lastmod of 2026-08-12; the page carries no date of its own.
  • Dating follows §4: the Secretary’s memorandum is the directive, the effective date is when the world changed.
Action
transfer
Object
Office of Security and Preparedness (OSP) / Human Resources and Administration (HRA)
ID
1809