SEC Restructuring Regional Offices to ‘Improve Efficiency, Management and Oversight’

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will reportedly restructure its regional offices so that fewer people report directly to the agency’s enforcement director.

Effective April 9, the SEC’s 10 hubs across the country will be reorganized under four deputy directors — West, Northeast, Southeast and specialized units — Reuters reported Wednesday (April 2), citing a memo sent to SEC staff by Acting Chairman Mark Uyeda and saying that an SEC spokesperson confirmed the changes.

The new management structure will replace the current one in which there is one deputy director for the enforcement division and 10 hubs across the country, according to the report.

Uyeda said in the email that the changes aim to maintain the importance of the SEC’s regional offices, and that “the current management structure simply cannot be sustained,” according to Bloomberg, which also reported on Uyeda’s email Wednesday.

Asked about the email by Bloomberg, the SEC said in a statement, per the report: “The reporting lines in the Divisions of Enforcement and Examinations will be realigned to better reflect each Division’s national programs and are intended to improve efficiency, management and oversight of the Divisions.”

It was reported March 21 that about 10% of the SEC’s employees — 500 out of about 5,000 — had accepted buyouts or deferred-resignation offers and would leave the agency.

Some of the more significant departures took place in the SEC’s divisions of enforcement, exams and the office of the general counsel, Bloomberg reported at the time.

The report said the SEC was also cutting costs by ending the leases for its offices in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, and the General Services Administration was considering doing the same with the agency’s office in Chicago.

Reuters reported March 21 that more than 700 SEC staffers had agreed to leave the agency since late January, when the Trump administration, as part of its efforts to downsize the federal government, first offered to compensate workers if they departed.

It was reported March 3 that the SEC was participating in those efforts by offering eligible employees a $50,000 incentive to resign or retire. The voluntary separation incentive or voluntary early retirement program was being offered to eligible employees who resigned, transferred to another agency or immediately retired.