The HONOR Act of 2025 directs the Department of Veterans Affairs’ National Cemetery Administration (NCA) to post a publicly accessible spreadsheet (or similar document) on the NCA landing page showing current interment schedule availability for every operational cemetery it controls, and to refresh that document monthly. The bill also requires the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs to submit a proposed definition of “interment schedule availability” to Congress within 60 days and to deliver a report within one year containing five years of historical availability data.
Separately, the bill formalizes expectations around customer-service measurement: it expresses that NCA should continue participating in the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), requires 30 days’ notice to Congress if NCA will not participate in an ACSI cycle, mandates ongoing internal NCA customer surveys with public results, and requires 30 days’ advance notice to Congress before changing those surveys. The measure centralizes scheduling transparency and customer feedback as management tools for NCA operations and congressional oversight.
At a Glance
What It Does
Requires the NCA to host a public spreadsheet on its landing page showing the most recent interment schedule availability for each operational national cemetery, update it at least every 30 days, submit a proposed definition of that availability metric within 60 days, and provide a five‑year historical availability report within one year. It also preserves NCA participation in the American Customer Satisfaction Index and requires notice to Congress for nonparticipation or survey changes.
Who It Affects
Directly affects the National Cemetery Administration and the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs, operational national cemeteries managed by NCA, funeral homes that schedule interments, veterans’ families who plan burial services, and congressional oversight entities that will receive the new reports and notices.
Why It Matters
It creates a recurring public metric for how long families wait between establishing a case and the first available interment, introduces statutory reporting deadlines, and locks customer satisfaction measurement and transparency into NCA practice—tools that change how scheduling performance is visible to stakeholders and how NCA will defend operational decisions.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The bill tells the Department of Veterans Affairs to make the NCA’s interment scheduling information public and keep it current. Specifically, the NCA must place a spreadsheet or similar document on the publicly accessible landing page for the National Cemetery Administration that lists the “interment schedule availability” for every operational cemetery the agency controls.
The law sets a 120‑day window for the agency to post that document after enactment and requires monthly updates thereafter.
Because “interment schedule availability” can be measured several ways, the bill forces the agency to propose a definition to Congress within 60 days. The proposed definition must generally measure the number of business days from when a case is opened to the first available interment date and must account for whether the agency can meet families’ preferred dates, days of the week, and times.
The requirement to submit a proposed definition means Congress—and public stakeholders—will see the metric the agency intends to use before it is applied in the published spreadsheet.The NCA must also compile and send Congress a report containing five years of historical interment-availability data within one year. That report will create a retrospective baseline that can be compared to the monthly public postings.
On customer service, the bill expresses congressional preference that NCA continue participating in the American Customer Satisfaction Index and requires the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs to notify Congress 30 days before skipping an ACSI cycle. Separately, the agency must continue administering its own customer surveys to veterans, families, and funeral homes, publish those results, and notify Congress 30 days in advance of any changes to the survey’s methodology, participants, or scope.Collectively, the requirements assign concrete, time-bound responsibilities to the Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs and the NCA’s operational staff: produce and maintain public schedule data, define the metric used to measure availability, assemble a historical data report, sustain customer‑facing surveys, and provide advance notices to Congress when survey participation or methodology changes.
The bill does not prescribe enforcement mechanisms or penalties; it creates transparency and reporting obligations intended to inform oversight and public understanding of NCA scheduling performance.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The NCA must post a spreadsheet or similar document showing interment schedule availability for each operational national cemetery within 120 days and update it at least once every 30 days.
Within 60 days the Secretary must send Congress a proposed definition of “interment schedule availability” that measures business days from case establishment to first available interment and accounts for family date/time preferences.
The Secretary must submit to Congress a report—due within one year—containing five years of historical interment schedule availability data.
The bill states Congress’ view that NCA should continue participating in the American Customer Satisfaction Index and requires 30 days’ advance notice to Congress if NCA will not participate in an ACSI survey cycle.
NCA must continue its own customer surveys of veterans, families, and funeral homes, publish those results, and provide Congress 30 days’ notice before any change to survey methodology, participants, or scope.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Public interment-availability spreadsheet on NCA landing page
This subsection requires the Secretary to maintain a spreadsheet or similar document on the public landing page of the National Cemetery Administration that displays the most recent interment schedule availability for every operational cemetery under NCA control. Practically, this compels the agency to present schedule data in a single, discoverable place on its website rather than dispersed pages or internal systems; the phrase “spreadsheet or similar document” gives the agency flexibility on format but sets an expectation of structured, downloadable data.
Timing: initial posting and monthly updates
This subsection imposes concrete deadlines: the initial posting must occur no later than 120 days after enactment, and the posted document must be updated at least once every 30 days. For operations teams, that creates a recurring cadence for data export, validation, and publication and implies ongoing resource needs for data collection, quality control, and web publishing.
Required proposed definition of 'interment schedule availability'
The Secretary must submit to Congress, within 60 days of enactment, a proposed definition of the metric. The bill instructs that the definition should generally measure business days from the establishment of a case to the first available interment date and should factor in the agency’s ability to meet families’ preferred dates, weekdays, and times. That requirement elevates the metric from administrative detail to a congressional policy question and forces the agency to disclose how it will count and present waiting time.
Five-year historical availability report
Within one year the Secretary must deliver to Congress a report containing interment schedule availability data for the five-year period ending on the report’s submission date. This creates a historical baseline against which future monthly postings can be measured and requires the agency to extract, aggregate, and explain past scheduling performance—potentially surfacing trends, regional differences, or operational bottlenecks.
Customer service surveys, ACSI participation, and notice requirements
Section 3 contains two strands. First, it expresses that Congress prefers NCA continue participation in the American Customer Satisfaction Index and requires the Under Secretary to notify Congress 30 days before any nonparticipation in an ACSI cycle. Second, it directs the Under Secretary to continue administering the NCA’s own customer surveys to veterans, families, and funeral homes, to publish the results, and to notify Congress 30 days prior to any changes in survey methodology, participants, or scope. Functionally, the statute locks in reporting and notice obligations around external and internal customer‑satisfaction measurement, increasing transparency about both participation and methodological changes.
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Explore Veterans in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Veterans’ families and next of kin — they gain clearer public information about when the first available interment dates exist, helping plan funerals and set expectations when working with cemeteries and funeral homes.
- Funeral homes and directors — access to a centralized, updated schedule reduces phone‑tag and uncertainty when coordinating services and may streamline case intake and logistics.
- Congress, inspectors general, and oversight organizations — the public spreadsheet and the five‑year report provide data to evaluate NCA scheduling performance, identify systemic issues, and hold the agency accountable.
- Researchers and veterans’ advocacy organizations — historically compiled and regularly updated availability data produce an empirical basis for policy analysis on capacity, regional disparities, and resource needs.
Who Bears the Cost
- National Cemetery Administration and VA operational staff — they must allocate time and systems to extract, validate, and publish schedule data monthly, draft the definition for congressional review, and prepare the historical report.
- Under Secretary for Memorial Affairs — statutory deadlines and notice requirements increase reporting responsibilities and require coordination across IT, operations, and public affairs.
- Local cemetery scheduling teams — increased public visibility may require stricter adherence to recorded availability, additional documentation of exceptions, and potentially faster responses to scheduling requests.
- Taxpayers and appropriators — implementing monthly publication, historical reporting, and ongoing survey administration could generate modest additional costs if existing IT and staff capacity is insufficient and requires funding.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central tension is between public accountability through standardized, visible scheduling metrics and the operational reality that cemeteries must balance efficiency with individualized service: a clear, comparable metric helps oversight but risks incentivizing behaviors (e.g., prioritizing metric optimization over family preferences) or forcing rigid scheduling that erodes service quality for grieving families.
The bill requires the agency to propose a definition of “interment schedule availability” rather than setting a statutory definition, which leaves open whether Congress will accept, modify, or reject the agency’s proposal. That sequencing creates uncertainty about the metric that will drive public reporting and creates potential for delays or dispute.
The requirement to measure business days from case establishment to first availability is a concrete starting point, but the provision to account for family preferences introduces subjectivity: how much weight will be given to a family’s preferred date versus the earliest available date? That balance matters because it changes whether the metric reflects bare operational capacity or the agency’s success at meeting family preferences.
Operationally, monthly publication is a modest cadence but raises questions about data granularity (daily vs. aggregated), how cancellations and reschedules are treated, and whether the public document will include timestamps, backlog counts, or only the computed number of business days. The bill’s notice provisions around ACSI nonparticipation and survey changes increase transparency but do not require methodological standards, independent validation, or continued participation; the agency could notify Congress of a change while still substantially weakening the comparability or usefulness of its measures.
Finally, the statute contains no enforcement mechanism or penalties for missed deadlines or inaccurate reporting, so compliance will depend on internal VA priorities, congressional oversight appetite, and potential appropriations for implementation.
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