Treasury Stock

From time to time, our Board of Directors authorizes management to repurchase shares of our issued and outstanding common stock on the open market. Repurchases may be made to manage dilution created by shares issued under our stock incentive plans or whenever we deem a repurchase is a good use of our cash and the price to be paid is at or below a threshold approved by our Board. As of March 31, 2017, we had 194,565 shares available for repurchase on the open market under the Board's authorizations. On April 26, 2017, our Board increased these repurchase authorizations by 5,435 shares bringing the total authorization as of the approval date to 200,000 shares. Shares may also be tendered by employees to satisfy tax withholding obligations in connection with the vesting of restricted stock.

Repurchased shares of our common stock were as follows:



	Three Months Ended March 31,
(In thousands)	2017		2016
Shares repurchased	185		33
Cost of shares repurchased	$	11,389	$	1,724

Repurchased shares are recorded as shares held in treasury at cost. We hold these shares for future use as management and the Board of Directors deem appropriate, which has included compensating our outside directors.