SBA Office in Santa Ana to Be Closed : Business: Shutdown is part of an Administration plan to reduce the size and cost of government. Ventura and three dozen other offices nationwide are also slated to close.

The Small Business Administration, taking the first concrete steps to streamline its operations, said Tuesday that it plans to shut down offices in Santa Ana and Ventura along with about three dozen others around the country as early as this summer.

The cutbacks are part of the Clinton Administration’s previously announced plan to reduce the size and cost of government by revamping the SBA and other agencies.

SBA officials said they do not expect the shuttered offices to have a big effect on the agency’s loan guarantee program, which has been an important source of financing in Southern California. The agency’s key business loan program, in which the SBA backs loans made by banks, will be serviced regionally from district offices in Glendale and San Diego.

But the proposed shutdown of the Santa Ana office--one of the busiest in the nation--evoked outcries from some local lenders, who said the move would hurt their business.

“They did what?” said Robert Ucciferri, president of Bank of Yorba Linda, a small community bank that has made the most of the fast-growing SBA loan program. “My (SBA) guy is over in that office in Santa Ana three or four days a week. How’s he going to make that trip to Glendale? It’s not going to happen.”

Philip S. Inglee, president of Liberty National Bank in Huntington Beach, said the closure of the Santa Ana office may prompt him to move his bank’s SBA department closer to Glendale. “It’s a damn shame, but there’s not a lot we can do about it,” he said.

Other lenders were not as fretful, saying that much of their contact with the agency is over the telephone and the facsimile machine.

“If this makes (the agency) more efficient, it’ll help me in the long run,” said Dale White, who heads Truckee River Bank’s SBA office in Buena Park.

Mike Stammler, an SBA spokesman in Washington, said support staffs made up of contract employees and volunteers will remain in Santa Ana and other areas to maintain the agency’s presence and provide technical assistance.

“I’m naturally disappointed,” said Steve Waddell, head of Santa Ana’s office, which was established as a district in 1988 after years of being a branch to Los Angeles. Since then, Santa Ana has become the nation’s fourth-highest volume district office, behind Los Angeles, San Francisco and Atlanta.

Waddell said he expects the 25 people in his office to be offered transfers to other SBA sites. “All of us are waiting for guidance from Washington,” said Waddell, who like others were told of SBA’s plans by E-mail sent late Monday by SBA Administrator Philip Lader.

Besides Santa Ana, the agency’s district offices in seven other cities, including Fresno, will be closed, Stammler said. In addition, 17 branch offices will be shut down as well as 11 smaller offices that have just a few workers each, including an office in Ventura.

Some offices will be converted to handle different tasks. The Sacramento branch office, for instance, will process only loans of less than $100,000.

In all, Stammler said the office closures will help the agency cut employment by 500 and reduce its budget by $1.2 billion over the next five years. Stammler said he did not expect any layoffs, but he added, “I can’t promise there won’t be any.”

As part of its streamlining plan, the SBA also is drafting legislation to send to Congress that would eliminate the agency’s yearly subsidy by raising fees to borrowers and lenders. Akin to loan-loss reserves at a bank or a savings and loan, the SBA’s subsidy is the money Congress allocates to the SBA every year to cover loans that default.

The agency, which guarantees 70% to 90% of loans, has a subsidy of about $215 million to operate this fiscal year, enough to cover about $7.8 billion in loans. But Stammler said demand for these loans has continued to be so heavy that the SBA is expected to run out of money in early July, three months before the end of its fiscal year.

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SBA In Santa Ana

* Opened: 1981

* Location: 200 W. Santa Ana Blvd., Suite 700

* District director: Steve Waddell

* Employees: 26 (would be reassigned)

* Workload: Handled 30% of SBA loans approved in Southern California during last seven months

* Closing date: Undetermined

*

* Source: Small Business Administration;

* Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times