The Boston Globe reports that the Health Connector will be taking over administration of the program from the Small Business Service Bureau, resulting in a reduction in the per-employee administrative fee from $35 per month to $10 per month (the participating insurance companies will pay the other $25 per month to the Health Connector).

$25 per employee per month isn’t a huge amount in light of the high costs that small businesses incur in providing health care; but every little bit helps, no?

“A total of $3.8 billion in 12,393 SBA-backed loans was distributed throughout the U.S. from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 of last year, up from $1.9 billion by way of 9,070 loans a year earlier…”

This could mean good things for startup companies seeking capitalization assistance in 2010; or it could mean nothing more than that the last quarter of 2008 was catastrophically bad across any number of metrics, including small business lending.  So, it could mean something, or nothing.  Not particularly helpful, I’m afraid.

The Small Business Administration will, for the first time, provide guarantees for 504 loans sold into the secondary market.  It’s common practice for lending banks to bundle groups of loans together and sell them to investors; unfortunately, asset-backed securities haven’t been very popular recently, since the collapse of the mortgage-backed securities market.  The SBA’s willingness to guarantee these bundles makes them more attractive to investors, therefore making it easier for banks to bundle and sell small business loans, which in turn makes the banks more willing to lend to small businesses.  At least, that’s the theory; it remains to be seen how this will play out in practice.

The 504 loan program is one of many types of assistance provided by the Small Business Administration.  It’s designed to help job creation by providing financial support for business expansion.  Information about the program can be found here.