Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White said Tuesday she is telling her staff that examining small investment advisors is important.

“I don’t want to be absent from smaller spaces,” she said, noting the SEC’s use of computer modeling to determine which advisors to examine might not bring up large numbers of smaller advisors because they are not as risky as larger operations.

In justifying her aim, White added many retail investors rely on the advice of smaller firms and 75 percent of advisor examinations turn up deficiencies.

At the same time, the SEC chairman said 86 percent of 93 percent of advisors who are told about problems after an exam are good about fixing them.

White’s comments came at a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the agency’s request for a 26 percent budget increase for the next fiscal year starting October 1. The proposed budget from the Obama Administration calls for the addition of 316 new examiners, most of whom would be focused on raising the number of investment advisors reviewed each year from 9 percent.

However, a similar White House request was denied for the current budget cycle and Republicans have successfully rebuffed calls for significantly more SEC funding in the three years they have controlled the House of Representatives.

In the sole contentious exchange, Appropriations Financial Services Subcommittee Chairman Anders Crenshaw (R-Fla.) asked White how much the SEC was spending examining private funds and indicated he thought the agency was better off concentrating its resources on firms that focus on less wealthy investors.

“Investors across the board deserve protection,” responded the SEC head.

During the hearing, White said the SEC has been very aggressive going after a rise in affinity fraud, which she called “galling.”

In response to a question from a congressman about cyber security, White said the government needs to be better about sharing information with the private sector but private companies need security clearances.

On another issue, White said she has received a recommendation from the agency’s staff on new rules for proxy advisory services. She said she will be discussing the recommendation with her other commissioners within weeks.

She said the agency is in the “active stages” of developing and adopting a final rule on money market mutual fund reform that would be focused on preventing redemption risk that showed up during the recent recession.

With the release this week of best-selling author Michael Lewis’ book, Flash Boys, on high frequently trading, she noted the agency has a number of enforcement investigations looking at potential bad actors in that space.

But when it comes to high frequency trading in general, she said, advocates claim the practice provides the markets with greater liquidity and reduces trading costs while opponents caution the trend is creating an uneven playing field for investors.

In justifying the administration’s request for more money to examine advisors, she said the number of SEC-registered advisors has increased by more than 40 percent over the last decade, while the assets under management has increased more than two-fold, to almost $55 trillion and assets under management by mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and closed-end funds has increased by 123 percent to $16 trillion.