By: Diana Johnsen
djohnsen@kcautv.com
On Monday and Tuesday, over thirty members of the U.S. Department of Labor and FBI made an unannounced visit to Sioux Automation Center in Sioux Center, Iowa.
"My assumption is that they felt they wanted to gather more information in a short period of time, so they opted to do it this way," said Ronald Hulshof, President of Sioux Automation Center.
Hulsof said the company recently terminated its Employee Stock ownership Plan in March of this year.
Since then, the Department of Labor has questioned whether or not what it did was proper.
"It's within their custom to make sure that people who have these plans have done it right and have treated all the employees fairly," Hulshof said.
During their visit, federal investigators looked for paperwork on basically everything. From business activity over the past five years to proper approval papers on the termination of the plan, investigators searched for it all.
Over the last eight months, the business has been in open communication about terminating the plan with the Department of Labor, which made the visit quite the surprise.
"We just didn't expect a group of people to show up who took it to that level," added Hulshof.
During Monday's investigation, all 110 employees were given the opportunity to go home, but on Tuesday they were asked to come back to work.
Federal investigators left around noon on Tuesday.
Hulshof said he is sure his business and the Department of Labor will have more conversation on the issue in the future.
