President Obama proposed to add $4 million to the Small Business Administration’s budget in fiscal 2014 specifically to assist small federal contractors.

If approved by Congress, the $4 million would pay for the hiring of 32 new procurement center representatives at the SBA.

The representatives would be “strategically embedded across the federal government to increase the small business share of federal procurement awards,” according to a White House fiscal 2014 budget document. The personnel would help reserve procurements for competition among small business firms and provide small business sources to federal buying agents, the document said.

“This is a big deal,” Joe Jordan, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said in announcing the $4 million initiative at an industry conference last week.

“The president wanted to ensure that we had more resources to facilitate collaboration. I was really happy about this,” Jordan said at the event.

The SBA’s procurement center representatives are located at area offices and major federal buying activity centers around the country. They help the buying offices to identify qualified small businesses eligible for awards and to initiate set-asides.

Some specialists have cited a need for more staff support at the SBA to facilitate set-asides for 8(a) certified companies and other small vendors.

Overall, the SBA would be funded at $810 million in the president’s budget request, which is a decrease of $109 million from the fiscal 2012 enacted level. Most of the reduction is due to lower subsidy costs for the 7(a) Business Loan Guarantee Program, the White House indicated.

The budget also includes $159 million to support $1.1 billion in small business disaster loans.

The budget proposal contains $210 million for SBA’s non-credit technical assistance program, which includes $104 million for Small Business Development Centers and $20 million in technical sssistance for microloan programs.

The proposed budget also has $40 million for the SBA Emerging Leaders program, a public/private entrepreneurial education program.The SBA’s Office of Inspector General would get $20 million, which is $3 million over the fiscal 2012 enacted level.

The SBA budget has $7 million for the Boots to Business training program for veterans transitioning to small business ownership.

There is $6 million for the SBA’s contribution to BusinessUSA, an interagency initiative to integrate customer service and program information across federal programs that support small businesses and exporters.

There is also $2 million to support the President’s Export Promotion Cabinet’s efforts to expand small business exporting.

More information: SBA FY2014 budget: http://goo.gl/Nmb5r