Regulators Discuss Paying Producers in H and I Shutdown

According toa report in the Public Opinion Capitol Bureau, the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission decides Tuesday how to spread $400,000 among dozens of producers and businesses as partial compensation for larger amounts a de-licensed grain dealer in Kingsbury County owes to them.

Last yearthe commission suspended the state license for H and I Grain, based at Hetland, SD. The task now is distributing the bond.

Fifty-three customers are on the final list of claimants Jim Mehlhaff, state Grain Warehouse Division director, compiled. He received more than $2.75 million in claims.

Victims include dozens of individual producers, a Hutterite colony and Lake Norden Farmers Elevator.

The meeting is set for 9:30 a.m. CT on April 3 in room 413 of the state Capitol. An audio link will be atpuc.sd.gov.

The commission docket includes a sworn statement by Stacy Kruse whose job at H and I Grain included preparing and mailing contracts to producers. She was dismissed last June.

Kruse prepared price-later contracts in December 2016 and put them atop a filing cabinet for management’s signature but was told to throw them away, according to her statement.

The docket can be foundhere.