Department of Veterans Affairs

Pages356-369

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

810 Vermont Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20420

Phone, 202-273-4800. Internet, www.va.gov.

SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS Anthony J. Principi

Chief of Staff Nora E. Egan

Deputy Secretary Leo S. Mackay, Jr.

Chairman, Board of Contract Appeals Guy H. McMichael III

Chairman, Board of Veterans' Appeals Eligah Dane Clark

Vice Chairman, Board of Veterans' Richard B. Standefer

Appeals

Director, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Scott F. Denniston

Business Utilization

Director, Center for Minority Veterans Willie L. Hensley

Director, Center for Women Veterans Joan A. Furey

Director, Office of Employment Discrimination Charles R. Delobe

Complaint Adjudication

General Counsel Tim S. McClain

Inspector General Richard J. Griffin

Veterans' Service Organizations Liaison Allen (Gunner) Kent

Under Secretary for Health, Veterans Health Thomas L. Garthwaite

Administration

Deputy Under Secretary for Health Frances M. Murphy

Under Secretary for Benefits, Veterans Benefits Joseph Thompson

Administration

Deputy Under Secretary for Benefits Patrick Nappi

Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs, National Robin L. Higgins

Cemetery Administration

Deputy Under Secretary for Roger R. Rapp

Operations

Deputy Under Secretary for Vincent L. Barile

Management

Assistant Secretary for Management D. Mark Catlett, Acting

Deputy Chief Financial Officer William H. Campbell, Acting

Deputy Assistant Secretary for D. Mark Catlett

Budget

Deputy Assistant Secretary for William H. Campbell

Finance

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Gary J. Krump

Acquisition and Materiel Management

Assistant Secretary for Information and Robert P. Bubniak, Technology Acting

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary (vacancy)

for Information and Technology

Director, Austin Automation Center Linda Voges

Assistant Secretary for Policy and Planning Dennis Duffy, Acting

Deputy Assistant Secretary for (vacancy)

Policy

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Gary A. Steinberg

Planning and Evaluation

Assistant Secretary for Human Resources and (vacancy)

Administration

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert W. Schultz

for Human Resources and Administration

Deputy Assistant Secretary for C.G. (Deno) Verenes

Administration

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Armando E. Rodriguez

Diversity Management and Equal Employment Opportunity

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Ventris C. Gibson

Resources Management

Deputy Assistant Secretary for John H. Baffa

Security and Law Enforcement

Deputy Assistant Secretary for James S. Jones

Resolution Management

Associate Deputy Secretary for Ronald E. Cowles

Labor-Management Relations

Director, Shared Service Center Bruce C. Carruthers

Assistant Secretary for Public and Maureen Patricia Intergovernmental Affairs Cragin

Deputy Assistant Secretary for (vacancy)

Public Affairs

Deputy Assistant Secretary for (vacancy)

Intergovernmental and International Affairs

Assistant Secretary for Congressional and (vacancy)

Legislative Affairs

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Philip Riggin

Congressional Affairs

Deputy Assistant Secretary for (vacancy)

Legislative Operations

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The Department of Veterans Affairs operates programs to benefit veterans and members of their families. Benefits include compensation payments for disabilities or death related to military service; pensions; education and rehabilitation; home loan guaranty; burial; and a medical care program incorporating nursing homes, clinics, and medical centers.

T188578.029

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was established as an executive department by the Department of Veterans Affairs Act (38 U.S.C. 201 note). It. is comprised of three organizations that administer veterans programs: the Veterans Health Administration, the Veterans Benefits Administration, and the National Cemetery Administration. Each organization has field facilities and a central office component.

Activities

Cemeteries The National Cemetery Administration (NCA) provides services to veterans, active duty personnel, and reservists and National Guard members with 20 years' qualifying service and their families by operating national cemeteries; furnishing headstones and markers for the unmarked graves of U.S. veterans worldwide, service members, and reservists and National Guard members with 20 years' qualifying service; awarding grants to aid States in establishing, improving, and expanding veterans cemeteries; and serving as the operations element for the Presidential Memorial Certificate Program.

Center for Minority Veterans The Center for Minority Veterans was established under Public Law 103-446 (108 Stat. 4645) and is responsible for promoting the use of VA benefits, programs, and services by minority veterans and assessing the needs of minority group members. The work of the Center focuses on the unique and special needs of five distinct groups of veterans: African-Americans, Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans, which include American Indians, Native Hawaiians, and Alaskan Natives.

Center for Women Veterans The Center for Women Veterans acts as the

Secretary's primary adviser on women veterans issues and evaluates VA programs, policies, and practices to ensure they are responsive and accessible to eligible women veterans.

Health Services The Veterans Health Administration, formerly the Veterans Health Services and Research Administration, provides hospital, nursing home, and domiciliary care, and outpatient medical and dental care to eligible veterans of military service in the Armed Forces. It conducts both individual medical and health-care delivery research projects and multihospital research programs, and it assists in the education of physicians and dentists and with training of many other health care professionals through affiliations with educational institutions and organizations.

Veterans Benefits The Veterans Benefits Administration provides information, advice, and assistance to veterans, their dependents, beneficiaries, representatives, and others applying for VA benefits. It also cooperates with the Department of Labor and other Federal, State, and local agencies in developing employment opportunities for veterans and referral for assistance in resolving socioeconomic, housing, and other related problems.

The Compensation and Pension Service is responsible for claims for disability compensation and pension, specially adapted housing, accrued benefits, adjusted compensation in death cases, and reimbursement for headstone or marker; allowances for automobiles and special adaptive equipment; special clothing allowances; emergency officers' retirement pay; survivors' claims for death compensation, dependency and indemnity compensation, death pension, and burial and plot allowance claims; forfeiture determinations; and a benefits protection program for minors and incompetent adult beneficiaries.

The Education Service is responsible for the Montgomery GI Bill, assistance programs for dependents, post-Vietnam era veterans, and other pilot programs, school approvals, compliance surveys, and work study programs.

Life insurance operations for the benefit of service members, veterans, and their beneficiaries are available through the regional office and insurance center (phone, 800-669-8477) in Philadelphia, PA, which provides the full range of functional activities necessary for a national life insurance program. Activities include the complete maintenance of individual accounts, underwriting functions, life and death insurance claims awards, and any other insurance-related transactions. The agency also administers the Veterans Mortgage Life Insurance Program for those disabled veterans who receive a VA grant for specially adapted housing and supervises the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance Program and the Veterans Group Life Insurance Program.

Loan guaranty operations include appraising properties to establish their values; approving grants for specially adapted housing; supervising the construction of new residential properties; establishing the eligibility of veterans for the program; evaluating the ability of a veteran to repay a loan and the credit risk; making direct loans to Native American veterans to acquire a home on trust land; servicing and liquidating defaulted loans; and disposing of real estate acquired as the consequence of defaulted loans.

The Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Service is responsible for outreach, motivation, evaluation, counseling, training, employment, and other rehabilitation services to disabled veterans; evaluation, counseling, and miscellaneous services to veterans and service persons and other VA education programs; evaluation, counseling, education, and miscellaneous services to sons, daughters, and spouses of totally and permanently disabled veterans and to surviving orphans, widows, or widowers of certain deceased veterans, including rehabilitation services to certain handicapped dependents; affirmative action activities; and vocational training and rehabilitation to children with spina bifida who are children of Vietnam veterans.

Veterans' Appeals The Board of Veterans' Appeals (BVA) is responsible

for entering the final appellate decisions in claims of entitlement to veterans' benefits and for deciding matters concerning fees charged by attorneys and agents for representation of veterans before VA and requests for revision of prior BVA decisions on the basis of clear and unmistakable error. Final Board decisions are appealable to the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims.

Field Facilities The Department's operations are handled through the following field facilities:

--cemeteries, the final resting places for burial of the remains of veterans, active duty personnel, and reservists and National Guard members with 20 years' qualifying service; their spouses; and certain eligible dependents;

--domiciliaries, providing the least intensive level...

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