Sponsors (3)
The bill aims to improve veterans' access, service quality, and accountability at the VA through feedback, reporting, and oversight, but it creates new administrative costs, potential privacy risks, and a time-limited mandate that could limit lasting impact.
Veterans (and veterans who currently don't use VA benefits) will get improved access and service quality because the VA must collect veteran feedback and adopt a Department-wide customer experience strategy and outreach guidance to reach veterans facing awareness or technology barriers.
Veterans will benefit from greater transparency because the Secretary must report annually to Congress with disaggregated satisfaction and usage data by benefit and demographic group, improving visibility into who is served and how well.
Veterans and the public may have more confidence in VA customer data because independent oversight (GAO review) will assess the Veteran Signals system and the Office's feedback methods, potentially improving data quality and trust.
Veteran privacy could be at risk because the new Office will handle aggregated customer data and use Veteran Signals, which may expose sensitive information if data practices are imperfect.
Taxpayers (including middle‑class families) may face higher costs because creating and running the Office and related activities will increase administrative spending without directly expanding frontline services.
Some VA programs, hospitals, and state partners may need to divert staff time or funds to meet new reporting and reimbursement requirements, which could strain service delivery capacity.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Introduced May 23, 2025 by Nikki Budzinski · Last progress May 23, 2025
Creates an Office of Veterans Experience inside the Department of Veterans Affairs led by a Chief Veterans Experience Officer (CVEO) who reports to the Secretary. The Office will lead customer-experience strategy across VA, collect veteran-derived satisfaction and usage data, require VA offices to report customer-service metrics and action plans, and provide guidance to improve veteran-facing information and services. Requires annual reporting: the CVEO must provide summarized data to the Secretary, and the Secretary must submit an analysis to Congress (within 180 days of receipt) with disaggregated satisfaction data, reasons veterans do not use benefits, and recommendations. The bill also directs a Government Accountability Office review of VA’s feedback methods and Veterans Signals within 540 days, includes privacy protections for personally identifiable information, allows intra-VA cost reimbursement, prohibits raising VA’s overall FTE ceiling, and sunsets these Office requirements on September 30, 2028.