End RTC, Homefed President Says : Thrifts: Agency fraught with ‘waste and mismanagement,’ Administration told. Meanwhile, its chief reportedly leaves this week.

WASHINGTON —  In a stinging denunciation, the president of the former parent company of failed Homefed Bank in San Diego has called on the Clinton Administration and Congress to abolish the Resolution Trust Corp., accusing the federal agency of massive “waste and mismanagement.”

Meanwhile, RTC President Albert V. Casey will leave his job at the end of this week--two weeks early--at the urging of the Administration, sources said Tuesday.

Although no one would officially confirm’s Casey hastened departure, “we won’t predict who will be running the RTC on Friday,” a spokesman for the Treasury Department said. Casey announced last month that he was quitting effective at the end of March.

The turmoil comes amid growing dissatisfaction with the RTC, which still needs another $25 billion from Congress to complete its assigned job. Congress created the agency in 1989 to sell the assets of hundreds of failed savings and loans.

Theodore H. Sprink--president of Homefed Corp., former holding company for Homefed Bank--said in a recent letter to Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen that the RTC has “grown beyond any reasonable or recognizable benefit, and appears to exist primarily for its self-preservation.” A copy of the letter was obtained by The Times.

“Nowhere does a greater opportunity present itself to eliminate government waste, fraud and mismanagement than by the immediate abolition or consolidation of the field offices of the (RTC),” Sprink wrote.

While criticism of the RTC is nothing new, rarely has it been expressed so openly and cuttingly by someone who knows the agency so well. Sprink worked for the RTC in California for two years until last May in the areas of planning and thrift liquidation. He assumed his current job in June.

Indeed, among Sprink’s charges is that the RTC’s California office is “greatly overstaffed and clearly under-worked.”

RTC spokesman Stephen Katsanos sidestepped the criticism, pointing out that Sprink “has an interest in being a critical observer of the RTC. Whatever we do in terms of RTC asset sales and activity could affect what they (the shareholders) might be able to recover down the road. They do have a claim against the receivership.”

Homefed Bank, which was seized by the government in July, was the costliest thrift failure in history. Sprink heads the corporation that formerly ran Homefed but now controls only two comparatively small real estate subsidiaries.

The corporation has filed a $5.5-billion claim against the RTC, accusing it of selling Homefed assets too cheaply. The RTC “failed to maximize return on assets under its control,” Sprink said.

Said Katsanos: “We’re evaluating the claim and haven’t responded yet.”

When the thrift failed, the shareholders of Homefed Corp. lost their major asset. In the unlikely event that the RTC is able to recover the cost of closing the institution, and there are funds left from the sale of its assets, some funds could be returned to shareholders.

The Treasury Department declined to comment on Sprink’s letter, copies of which were sent to President Clinton and the heads of Congress’ banking committees, Sen. Donald Riegle (D-Mich.) and Rep. Henry Gonzalez (D-Tex.).

“With fewer properties to sell, substantially all RTC functions could be managed by a small staff of inspectors, investigators and oversight managers from one central location, or from under the consolidated wing of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.,” Sprink said.

The “RTC’s legacy of waste and mismanagement should pass into history,” he wrote. “Congress should consider only minimal funding, if any, on a short-term basis.”