SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Longtime wholesale grain dealer Ronald Janke of Streator has voluntarily surrendered his license to the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) and closed his business.

“There was no insolvency or anything of that nature,” IDOA spokesman Stuart Selinger said on June 27. Like others have done, Janke, 75, chose to voluntarily surrender his license “and just gracefully go out of business,” the spokesman said.

The State Grain Code requires the IDOA to publish a legal notice in the local newspaper of those licensees who decide not to renew their licenses or voluntarily surrender them. The notice is published for three consecutive weeks as a means of notifying anyone to whom the business owed money, to contact the IDOA.

“Which I’m confident they did not,” Selinger said of Janke Grain, indicating a voluntary surrender is not the same as bankruptcy. “I can’t speak for Mr. Janke, but I think he just chose to exit the business – he just decided to get out. No, there was no bankruptcy.”

If that was the case, the published legal notice would have read completely different, and the IDOA would have taken control of the assets of the business, liquidated the assets and paid the claimants, Selinger noted.

In cases involving voluntary grain license surrender, the IDOA goes in and performs a closeout examination in which the state agency reviews the books and records of the business to ensure all the farmers have been paid the amount owed them – “to make sure everybody’s been taken care of,” Selinger added.

The examination was carried out March 27. “We found that all of his grain allocations have been retired. In other words, all of his business was cleaned up and everybody was taken care of and paid for their grain, and Mr. Janke just exited gracefully.”

This kind of scenario is seen often now, especially where small entities are involved, Selinger said. “It’s awfully expensive anymore. The cost of CPA audits has gone through the roof, and a lot of smaller places are just choosing to exit the business,” he added.

The IDOA has had a pretty good run so far in 2012, however; the agency did take over in one small grain insolvency case in Millstadt in April, but is well on the way to closing the matter, he indicated. “Prior to that, we haven’t had one that cost money to the Grain Insurance Fund since 2008, and that (operator) was just sentenced last week to five years in jail and $1.3 million in restitution,” Selinger said.

The General Assembly rewrote the Illinois Grain Code following the Ty-Walk Grain Elevator failure in Minooka in 2000. The incident was the largest grain elevator insolvency case in the nation, with a $63 million deficit. At a federal court hearing in Chicago, two Ty-Walk operators were given jail sentences and ordered to pay restitution.

Janke Elevator was a private company listed on the IDOA database under wholesale grain dealers. The latest estimates show the company had an annual revenue of $5 million-$10 million and staff of up to four people. The IDOA has records on the company before 1991, although Janke could have been licensed prior to that, Selinger noted.

“He’s been around a long time,” the IDOA spokesman noted. “He was licensed as a dealer only, which meant he did not operate a grain elevator facility. He would buy from the farmer and sell to the elevator.”

Janke could not be reached for comment. His business phone is disconnected, and no residential phone is listed under his name.